5 mF capacitor acting like a smoke bomb!!

We did an experiment last year at college: testing a 5 mF\12V capacitor on a 24V power supply. We didn't plugged it in reverse, just to see how much time it would take before it dies.

About 1 minute later, the smoke show started, and the capacitor was drawing about 4 Amps of current. There was some acid at the end on the table, and one of our teacher was furious because of the horrible smell in the class (huge odour of acid).

He even had to cancel the class on the afternoon, and it took 24h for the smell to dissappear. There were even smelling the odour on the 5th floor of the building because of the ventilation system (the class was on the 2nd floor!)

Sorry for the poor cell phone quality video.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• capacitor
• electrolytic
• 5mF
• smoke
• explosion
• funny
• stupid
• electronic
• engineering
• science

[cheetawolf]

4 amps of current?!

wow thats a greedy capacitor o_O

[itsme16688]

cvm?

[RODALCO2007]

Excellent job 5* !!

[RandomNinjaOfEvil]

nice, yeah we tried a reverse trick in class a few months ago. Impressive bang and smoke. I searched because I have a 1mF capacitor right here that I found on the side of the road in an unknown circuit.

[jawsap]

use 30v DC :D  and booom :D