High voltage from water drops

Kelvin Generator based on water drop fall. This machine was made by student (us) in 2006 during experimental physics teaching at Paris 7 faculty of science.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• spark
• water
• static
• electricity
• dropplet
• light
• high
• voltage

[justgivemethetruth]

AS much as I like the tune "Take Five", physics is really not meant to be explained by music, without text or speech. This is a very amazing experiment but very hard to see in this video with no explanation.

[ykonik]

@justgivemethetruth Sorry to hear that. I made some very short text explanation in french in that video. But I must admit my goal was not to explain enterely all the physics principles behind that device but was to create interest in physics. Those who are curious enough with a researcher way of thinking can still find info very easily on the web. As you can see in other comments I always try to do my best to answer any physical question. Feel free to ask . But ...

[Snakk3]

i made one to my school project

but after some improvements stills not working.

can i use steel rings? or do i need to use copper ones? please answer me

by the way, your kelvin water dropper looks very cool (i like the way you made it)

[ykonik]

hi ! I used normal water , and I did nothing to break the symetry. Even the slightest difference between the left and the right side breaks it. Finally I would say the copper the better: it's more conductive but it should work with steel too. I think you are probably loosing the charge somewhere, be careful that everything is well isolated. Thanks for being interested.

[ActiveStorage]

@ykonik glad to find out that symmetry of the assembly is important. also did u try any other substances apart from water? fero-fluid maybe? salt water? also the velocity of the water flow, does it make a difference in voltage? many thanks

[ykonik]

@ActiveStorage We were under time pressure but we tried salted water the results were the same. We haven't had enough time to try fero-fluid or to increase the water velocity without modifying the water nozzles sprayers. We could have applied pressure in the tank but back then we were to tight on schedule to try everything we wanted.

[orion1077]

Guys...this does not produce any energy. The sparks come from accumulated charge that breaks through the air gap(between the electrodes). The charge gets accumulated by the energy from the water that goes through the air. The water already has potential energy (you put it there with your hands), and is turning it to kinetic energy as it falls. Some of this energy results in charge being accumulated to the metal (due to the water air interaction/friction).

[Smellify]

The energy added into the system was done by humans to lift the water to a higher level. The muscles lifted the water. Then gravity pulled it down. So it does not produce energy it just wastes sugar in your muscles. Think about how the water got to a higher level. The sun raises water into the clouds also and this causes lightning. lightning is giving off energy because the sun caused water to mechanically move and rub.

[a2zhandi]

@Smellify let rain lift it for you! Rain is the vehicle which delivers "free" energy

[a2zhandi]

@orion1077 so in essence, you can get free energy from rain!

[ActiveStorage]

@orion1077 and what is friction?

[ActiveStorage]

@Smellify mechanically move and rub. ahahah LOL. do u even know how molecules interact with one another? they dont "rub" mechanically lol.

[vik95170]

très bonne vidéo, enfin un résultat intéressant ;)

[HybridWaterMan2]

It doesn't matter to me where the work came from initially- still a very cool effect to generate enough voltage (miiliamps only) to jump that gap.