Tossing a charged Capacitor in the Bathtub

[jw]

Damn, I never knew they even made caps that big. What was the actual size of that thing? (roughly). Or is there a photo on the web?

That sounds like quite a charge to see (literally) lol..

[JimT]

I think Stupid Moron should test that theory in his bathtub.

[jw]

I can only think of two uses.

1. Speaker filter caps (in crossovers)
2. Line caps which are usually very small, such as .05mf. They go across the power line for voltage surges and spikes.

What are the other uses?

[Larry Fishel]

I've never seen a deliberator cause much damage. :)

But a defibrillator works largely because the paddles/electrodes are placed on opposite sides of the heart. Tough to do with the average cap without attaching some cables, in which case it would probably work better out of the tub...

[Jules Richardson]

Hurts quite a bit if it discharges through your hand, though.

[Twayne]

If you're into analog engineering designs, there are enough to write entire books on them. Suggest you go research them; not worth trying to make up a list.

HTH,

Twayne`

[Ralph Mowery]

When used as designed, they don't normally cause any damage, because the heart is either stopped or not pumping correctly. They are designed so they will not discharge on a normally working heart. At least without an override code that only the doctors are suppose to use.

Fire one off on someone that has a normal working heart and it may stop. Large currents of DC will often just clamp the heart muscle and stop it. When I mention large, it is relative. Much less than one amp will do it. If inside the body, very small amounts of current will affect the heart.

While I doubt that a large capacitor just dropped in a tub will cause any problems with the person in it, the whole point is that a large capacitor charged to a high voltage is just as dangerous as the electricity in the wall socket.

[Tony Miklos]

Oh millions of amplifiers have signal caps, video monitors, telephones, wireless doorbells, wireless anything...

[Stormin Mormon]

Naah, might go to see Moroni, and hear some trumpet symphonies. Him and the heavenly chorous can be kind of pleasant evening listening.

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

.

Maybe the Mormon will try it and will lose him forever! *L*

[gregz]

The most common application for a capacitor is to pass ac while blocking dc. Sometimes a polarized cap is used to pass ac, with a bias circuit to keep the polarized plates set. Other larger non polarized caps in the hundreds of mf in ac line and motor application. They typically have a 600 volt rating.

Greg

[gregz]

There are polarized, back to back polarized caps used for ac, like in speaker crossover networks and other things. Most caps used in electronics are ac or dc, meaning non polarized, except some non polarized have mark to indicate outer foil. The others are polarized because they have a liquid filling to obtain high capacity.

Dc is typically more dangerous. I still remember grabbing hold of a high current 500 vdc source in my ham transmitter. I also remember sticking my finger in the antenna socket of my spark gap transmitter, of a toy bus I had when young.

My mother told me of the day I was pouring water into a lamp socket, and i said it made a funny noise.

Greg

[EXT]

I got a kick out of feeding either AC or reverse DC into a small electrolytic capacitor. Something less than an inch long will go off like a firecracker and the metal covering will fly across the room. In those days, I had lots of used capacitors stripped off old electronic (nixie tube type) calculators.

[HeyBub]

And most people would be wrong. The person in the tub would have to be touching the toaster, or whatever, thrown in the tub. Even then, if the internals of the appliance didn't fry, the circuit breaker would trip. At most, if touching the device, the bather would experience maybe a quarter-second of jolt.

[Jim Yanik]

"Ralph Mowery" wrote in news:kPqdncEfkbo7Qr_SnZ2dnUVZ [e-mail]:

When I was in high school electricity shop,we used to charge fractional microFarad caps to 100's of volts and toss them to other students,and "zap" them when they caught the cap and touched it's leads. It was enough to cause muscle spasms.

To do real harm,it has to be many uF,to hold a considerable charge.

BTW,the HV cap in a microwave oven is only .76uF,but can hold a dangerous charge,at 4000 volts.

[Jim Yanik]

"Ralph Mowery" wrote in news:GNqdnYwe8eah377SnZ2dnUVZ [e-mail]:

milliamps can do it. even 100's of microamps. BUT,you have to have enough voltage to break down skin resistance,or use substances to lower the skin resistance. dry skin has a high resistance. Those defib paddles are usually coated with a silver comppound. ever notice the user rubbing the paddles together before applying them to the patient? they are distributing the silver compound over the paddle's surface.it also prevents skin burns.

the current path for a charged cap dropped in a tub will not go through the person. the charges that kill people travel through their extremities into and through their torso,affecting the heart muscles. Plus their current and duration are much higher than the caps you can generally find can store.

[Dean Hoffman]

But the current flow doesn't have to be to ground. Think of a flashlight. The bulb will light even with a flashlight on a piece of non conducting material. The current flows from the negative to the positive poles through the bulb filament. It's about the voltage difference between two points. Electricity doesn't flow just through the path of least resistance. It flows through all available paths simultaneously. The amperage is in inverse proportion to the resistance in the circuit(s). A person in the tub could be in the circuit along with the water. The rule is called Kirchoff's (sp?) Law if you're interested. The EEs could explain it better probably.

[Jim Yanik]

gregz wrote in news: [e-mail] g:

500mF (mF = millifarad)is one half of a farad. or do you mean uf;microfarad? milliF caps are rare.

OTOH,"MF",capital M,is MegaFarad. M = mega,m = milli,mmF = microfarads(uF) in the old notation.

there are polarized electrtolytics(leads marked +/-) and non-polarized caps(electrolytics are marked NP,non-electrolytic caps are not marked). both are used in all sorts of electronics. then there are caps that can handle higher currents,those are the sort used in motor circuits.

[Doug]

Altho we don't know each other, you know I was just joking. On a serious note, just glad you are okay and now I wished I didn't make that roof joke. In your case, maybe it wasn't so funny. Sorry.

[clare]

The capacitor would be shorted and unless it actually touched the person in a tub, no harm would be done.

As for AC and DC, they ALL charge with DC, and DC only.

[clare]

You are going to bet your life on that untruth / half truth.

Pure water containing no ions is an excellent insulator, but not even "deionized" water is completely free of ions. Water undergoes auto-ionization in the liquid state. Further, because water is such a good solvent, it almost always has some solute dissolved in it, most frequently a salt. If water has even a tiny amount of such an impurity, then it can conduct electricity readily, as impurities such as salt separate into free ions in aqueous solution by which an electric current can flow