DIYbanter - View Single Post - Tossing a charged Capacitor in the Bathtub

Tony Miklos[_2_]

On 1/27/2012 6:54 PM, wrote:
On Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:25:25 -0500, Tony
wrote:

On 1/27/2012 11:53 AM, wrote:
Most people know that dropping a cord or appliance that is plugged into
an outlet into a bathtub filled with water will electrocute the person
in the tub. Yet, you can drop a low voltage item such as a flashlight
with batteries in the tub and no one will be hurt. Even a set up jumper
cables connected to a car battery would not likely do anything, or might
just tingle a little (never tried this, but I've handled plenty battery
cables while standing on wet soil in wet shoes and never felt a thing).

Not that I'm planning to test this, but what would happen if a large
capacitor, charged with 200 volts or more was tossed into a filled
bathtub while someone was in the tub? (By large capacitor, I dont mean
the size, but rather, I mean a large capacity, such as 500 MF or one
Farad or more....).

Well there is one hell of a difference between 500mf and 1 farad.
Although 1 Farad 5 volt caps have become quite small, one rated at 200
volts might bludgeon them to death if it hits them in the head, charged
or not.

I see no reason this would ever occur, but I'm just curious.

[NOTE: This could be DC or AC]. DC capacitors are used in electronics,
while the AC type are motor start capacitors.

Lots of AC rated caps are used in electronics.

I can only think of two uses.

1. Speaker filter caps (in crossovers)
2. Line caps which are usually very small, such as .05mf. They go across
the power line for voltage surges and spikes.

What are the other uses?

Oh millions of amplifiers have signal caps, video monitors, telephones,
wireless doorbells, wireless anything...