Blowing Up Capacitors: Safety Tips & Results

[kon]

hello i am new to this forum so let me start off by saying this was the most likely place to post this (hopefully).

i connected a small capacitor to a 110v wall socket, i want to attempt something similar in retrospect with a 1 farad capacitor (it is a car audio capacitor)

was curious to know how this might turn out as i cannot seem to find one being blown up by overloading the volts on youtube.

i imagine if i were to blow this up, i would need a fuse in the line somewhere butit would probably blow it anyway because it would pull too much current

not the smartest idea, but its fun lol

 

[gnurf]

The energy (E = 0.5CV²) that is stored on a 1F capacitor at 110V is 6kJ. As a comparison, the energy released by the explosion of one gram of TNT is 4kJ. Of course, you knew this already---you wouldn't be so stupid as to insert random electrical components into the wall socket without knowing what you were doing, right?

 

[Bob S]

1) The only capacitors suitable for this application are AC-rated capacitors like "motor-run" capacitors used with electric motors. The largest available at Digikey is 6uF.

2) Always put a 100 watt light bulb in series with any experiment using a wall socket voltage source.

3) Always obey the Two Man Rule when working with electricity over about 15 volts..

4) In my opinion, you do not have enough electricity training to do experiments like this.

Bob S