Harnassing Static Electricity

[Nitack]

Originally Posted by Turtle

That's what they pay me for.

Other than having just a little bit of juice available, though I agree you could store it in a capacitor to trickle charge a battery, there is the matter of the dry weather conditions necessary to create the static in the first place. It seems to me this is an infrequent occurance and investing in equipment to harness the static is not worth the gain.

Do you have a multi-meter and any little capacitors around?

To get this clear in my mind, if you were to charge a capacitor with static electricity from your body, would you have to be connected to it while you're rubbing up a charge, or only after you're charged? Would one side of the capacitor need to be grounded while charging it?

Well, I am getting ridiculously large shocks every few minutes around my house. It is naturally dry in Virginia during the winter so I would have a whole season to charge things. No multi-meter or capacitors around.

[modest]

My buddy's older brother did this when I was in high school. I really thought it was just the coolest thing. He used a long insulated copper wire like Dutchdivco describes. As I recall, he was able to charge a car battery in a few days.

Originally Posted by Turtle

Other than having just a little bit of juice available, though I agree you could store it in a capacitor to trickle charge a battery...

This link describes using a spark plug and an ignition coil which sounds brilliant.

The thing building up a charge would be connected to a spark plug, which would discharge each time it builds up enough charge. The other spark plug lead would be connected to the secondary coil of the ignition coil (the blue part on this diagram). The coil would work as a transformer lowering the voltage and delivering it in pulses to the battery which should charge it.

The positive side of the battery is then connected to the primary coil while the negative side of the battery is grounded. There's then a large capacitor between the negative battery lead and the "antenna".

These parts are all cheap, if not readily available in most people's garage. Who's up for it

~modest

[Dutchdivco]

Most pholtovoltaic solar and wind electric power systems use 12 volt, although they use 'marine' batteries instead of car batteries, and usually use a 'bank' of them. I'm thinking, A) This could be used as a supplement to such a system charging even when cloudy or windless, or B) By using a bigger system, (Really just need more insulated copper wire, could be run in several layers over the same coarse, so wouldn't add much to cost, just more insulators perhaps) could supply ALL the recharging for an 'off-grid' system.I'm definetly up for trying this, although I can't start on it yet. Since I'm planning on building an off-grid system, I will need the bank of batteries and inverters, charge monitors anyway.Before laying out the BIG expence of solar cells, I will set up a system and see how much charging I can get from it. Even if it just reduces the # of solar panels I need, that would be significant, as they are the highest $ item in the system.Unfortunately, won't be able to start for about 6 mos.Jim

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by Dutchdivco

Most pholtovoltaic solar and wind electric power systems use 12 volt, although they use 'marine' batteries instead of car batteries, and usually use a 'bank' of them. I'm thinking, A) This could be used as a supplement to such a system charging even when cloudy or windless, or B) By using a bigger system, ...
Jim

I like it Jim! I knew this was discussed at Hypog before so I found the thread. As I describe in post #5, I heard about this power idea in relation to a large antenna for Ham radio, but in that case the power being induced was unwanted.

Thread: >> Waves

[Dutchdivco]

I also posted about this on another site, and people who know alot more about me about electricity assured me it will work. I'm definetly gonna try it. As I said, at the least it could be a supplement to solar cells. Apperently you can get some pretty high voltages, as my previous post suggests.That was the one where I was quoting the guy on the other site, who talked about 2 guys who used old coke bottles as insulators, and got scared so dismantled it.They gave me the correct instructions for how to wire it up, with the coil and sparkplug, to make it work.Wish I could start on it right now, but I've got a project I'm in the middle of, have to finish first.Jim

[werewolf74]

Actually you *can* get lightning to strike in the same place over and over. All you need is a rod/conductor and you pass a laser up into the clouds. Say about mid way the laser is passing very close to the top of that rod. The Laser Ionizes the air and the lightning tried to follow the laser, there is no real conduction and so it strikes the rod.

The other thing is people saying static is not that 'strong' are kind of neglecting the fact they could run miles of something like that under a roadway or like say the tension wires of a bridge or anywhere were friction is created over and over.... that would build up.

Just my 2 cents. I stumbled over this page and thought id say something.