Unraveling Capacitors

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Mar 112009
 

What’s inside a capacitor? Watch this video to find out! (and then, go read the wikipedia entry for waaaay more info)

Credits: Zach Hoeken, Adam Mayer, Raphael Abrams, & Eric Skiff

Music: Ascending from: http://glitchnyc.com/music

  • http://www.twitter.com/johnbaloney John Baronian

    That was awesome and sooooo fun! But my problem with understanding capacitors is, why do they only work with AC? And on a lighter note…Could you do the next capacitor video overcharging a cap? I wanna see breakdown! Thanks Zach, Adam, Raphael and Eric.

    Show no resistance, only infinite capacitance for one another…

  • http://gomobile.com.ar Zim

    Messages inside capacitors! That’s seriously cool!

  • wwward

    Why do some capacitor’s ends bulge or blow off? Like those defective models used on some motherboards a few years back…

  • http://davekauffman.ca Dave K

    for more fun, get one of those 1Farad super-capacitors and unroll it. That stuff that seems to resemble the thermal paper from old fax machines has billions of nano-level caves that provide places to hold charges. It’s totally fractal.

  • CollinMel

    fun vid!

    @John – the 2 conductors inside a cap are insulated from eachother so DC current can’t flow between them.

    @wwward – when a cap’s electrolytic breaks down it can produce gas forcing the casing to expand and eventually *POOF* – much paper confetti!