Dust Collection Capacitor?

[Puckdropper]

A capacitor at its simplest is two conductive plates separated by a dielectric or insulator. So, given conductive metal strips of sufficient size and a dielectric of PVC pipe, could the static charge the occurs from dust collection be used to power something?

Maybe the "PVC capacitor" could be used to power the dust collector motor. Turn on the DC, establish a charge, and then the DC would power itself! Except for the noise, there'd be no reason to turn the DC on and off. We've made a perpetual motion machine!

Puckdropper

[MikeWhy]

If you buy in that the static charge amounts to anything requiring careful grounding, there might be enough energy to capture and power something useful, even if not necessarily the DC itself. I don't happen to share that misconception, so I don't have to answer the second part of how to capture the electrical white noise and convert it to useful power. You could do the same for lightning, and find a market for the madness in this Green world of ours. There are also other sources of measurable electrical potential. Did you know that there's a 9 volt difference between ground potential and the foliage at the top of a 30 foot tree?

[Morris Dovey]

Actually, you don't even need the tree :)

DAGS on "Atmospheric Potential"

[CW]

Anyone who has unloaded a suspended load from a helicopter can tell you about static.

[Lew Hodgett]

Gasoline tanker trucks still drag ground chains don't they?

Lew

[Bored Borg]

On Sun, 5 Apr 2009 00:31:24 +0100, MikeWhy wrote (in article ):

Yes. Electricity always flows downhill to balance the sap, which rises. it can be measured with a Calvinometer which shows that it has no choice in the matter.

also- The potential difference between the top and bottom of a tree is the reason why all trees have to be grounded...

time for my pills..

[Puckdropper]

Bored Borg wrote in news: [e-mail]:

*snip*

*snip*

That's a good one... Mind if I use it as my sig? :-)

Puckdropper

[Bored Borg]

On Sun, 5 Apr 2009 06:12:26 +0100, Puckdropper wrote (in article ):

for a rent of one peppercorn every three hundred years. I'll send invoice when first rental period is up.

feel free :-)

[Puckdropper]

Bored Borg wrote in news: [e-mail]:

I'll just reverse my perpetual motion dust collector and get that peppercorn right over to you when the time comes.

Puckdropper

[ed_h]

Interesting idea. One difference is that in a capacitor, the charges are on the conductive plates, where it could be easily conducted away to do some work. In a DC system, the charge is a static one on an insulator. Getting it to move in some way other than a spark would be a challenge. Besides, a fully charged PVC DC system probably wouldn't contain much more than a fraction of a Joule, and it takes time to build up that much. I don't think we could count on enough power to run a serious motor for very long.

Now if we put a turbine wind generator in the pipe...

[Tom Veatch]

You'd take more power from the airflow in the pipe (supplied by the dust collector motor) than you'd get out of the generator. Same sort of idea as using a motor to run a generator to feed the motor to run the generator. The generator puts out less than it takes for the motor to run the generator.

You'd put more power into the DC's motor to flow the air than you'd get out of the air turbine. A net loss.

Tom Veatch Wichita, KS USA

[ed_h]

Tom--

Absolutely correct.

I guess you couldn't see my smirk when I suggested the turbine. Irony sometimes doesn't make it intact through cyberspace.

[Andy Dingley]

Try powering a capacitor and neon bulb. Even if you just get the odd flash from it, it'd be a cute demonstration of the static electricity.

I doubt you'll extract much electricity from two plates though - try two rings, one downstream of the other.

[J. Clarke]

Not much capacitance in that configuration. Sheet of foil epoxied around outside of pipe, another sheet inside, now you've got a capactor. Probably again not much capacitance because of the thickness of the dielectric, but maybe you can get up enough juice to fire a neon bulb.