Re: Salt water cap basics.

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Matthew Smith" <matt-at-kbc-dot-net.au> 

Colin Quinney wrote:

<blockquote>
I thought salt water being a conductor would just short out a cap. What is
the advantage over using pure distilled water. Why does it work?
</blockquote>

With a salt water capacitor, the salt water acts as one (or both) of the 
conductive plates.  This solves the problem of how to plate an electrode 
around the inside of a bottle.

A bottle full of brine is, effectively, a bottle full of capacitor 
plate.  The outside electrode may be foil, but if you stand the bottle in a 
bucket of brine, you get the second electrode easy as anything.

The bottle (jar, whatever) forms the dielectric part of the capacitor.

The Geek Group shows the design of a capacitor made of a bucket full of 
bottles.  Have a look at this, and all should be clear:
<http://www.thegeekgroup-dot-org/projects/bucketcap/>

Whilst there is no FAQ for this list, searchable archives exist that you 
can look through.  <http://www.pupman-dot-com>

Hope this helps.

Cheers

M

-- 
Matthew Smith
Kadina Business Consultancy
South Australia