Heh I clicked on this mostly to see how you'd handle the ambiguity at the edges. You went straight for the jugular on that issue. This is getting to the fundamentals of knowledge in a way that I wish more people would spend some time thinking critically about. Excellent instructional material.

Can you imagine for a moment, the number of other KZfaq videos one would need to sit through to piece together this much explanation. And it's all delivered here with such eloquence.

I work in electronics and without a shadow of a doubt that's one of the best explanations of caps, super caps and batts I've ever heard. I really like the analogy with the balloon and the material it's made from... I might be nicking that as it's so accurate to explain caps from super caps in a nice simple manner people understand thank you 👍.

The first three minutes of this video are a wonderfully concise presentation of a way of thinking that all of us can benefit from. As a teacher of economics, I greatly appreciate the promotion of thinking aids and understanding the limits of them (as you say, when it becomes error). Well done, and thank you for the delightful presentations.

As a retired 76 year old engineer I thought I had a reasonable grasp of electronics but Robert has opened up my view of different ways of looking at things and how much there is to discover. Thanks

Great Job Rob !!! Your talks are my favorite part of your show. If you went on for an hour I'd be on the edge of my chair. You have a gift and your know how to use it. Bravo mate!

Brilliant approach to the comprehension and classification of the phenomena! So pleased to have found this channel!

The coffee cup of a real Engineer.

Having worked on this subject a few years now, largely resulting from your inspiration Rob, this is a a neat encapsulation of the difficulty with , 'defining the issue'. Thanks

In this episode of "KZfaq is better than school".... 6 minutes in and i'm already impressed by your delivery and subbed to the channel.

Thank you, I appreciate your explanation, and understand it! I have spent a lot of time working with animals, horses in particular. And an analogy, I used to be a little confused by one person who looked down on heavy horses, but they'd be throwing daft money at a thoroughbred... I obviously learned very quickly, and I would never try to plough a field, or pull heavy equipment, with a thoroughbred.... Likewise, I'd not enter a race, on a Clydsdale.... One has an explosive energy release, but that's it. Whereas, the 2nd has great power, but its discharged at a slower pace. Now, before I disappear down a certain rabbit - hole... What I'm trying to say is Thank You!! You are so good at explaining these things, even I am regaining my grasp on them!! I was an apprentice aircraft engineer, with the WRAF, (showing my age, Lol!) But, returned home, to look after my mother, I was Lucky enough to learn about Ham-Radio, from my Dad. As well as car maintenance, at College. And lots of other stuff too. I am having to relearn a great deal, after a Traumatic head injury, so at least I am lucky enough, to have a passion and interest... At the time of life, many folks are resting on their Laurels!! Graphene, has my attention now, and I am saving up, to Join and to buy some things for experimentation!! XxX.

always saw a battery like a sponge full of water and the capacitor as a pitcher. i like your analogy much more.

You are very good at presenting ideas and discussion.

watching this again, :) and the chair/stool/table transition discription is so apt for this, it really does seem to be a perfect example of what you are about to discuss about the differences of the battery/supercapacitor/capacitor traits and how many of these can be in any two or all three while the items are still in one of those three classifications, What I like about it is that by defining the characteristics that fit in each and explaining how do to a lot of them, someone could use your explanations to make a custom blend of these for any one of a number of various uses each one different in needs and yet each version fits that need quite well even if it wont do the other things in the list that are so vastly different in demands XD. Thanks again on going back and clarifying some of these things, while I feel I should have the understanding for some reason much of these rabbit holes of info and ideas being so important were still places I completely missed.

Dear Rob. It is not only a satisfying answer but also, when one thinks about it, a sincerely liberating answer leaving the whole field of exploration open to us all. Thank you.

This is fantastic, and a very good way to explain any number of things that dont have definite edges between two things

Rob, FANTASTIC video: great imagery, superior explanation and wonderful details + pertinent brief history! I have the same perception and need that you do essentially, so this video resonated very keenly. I've tried to explain this to others time and time again in a similar way - but never very successfully since I didn't use the "categorization" / "function" function. THANK YOU! And yes, your remarks about loudness are spot on and it's a terrible challenge in this insane world and society today! :D

Thank-you thank-you thank-you! I have been trying to solve this question since I watched you first capacitor YT. I am glad to know that there is no clear delineation. That’s sort of what I thought. Thank you again Robert for taking the time to make a YT that must seem almost trivial!

I see things similar to yourself.. plus a bit more expanded when the need arises.. But what this video did was more tell us how you think and view your world. Making it a bit more clear when you explain things.. This was an excellent video Rob.. It help me to bring into focus the things you speak of and the way you speak of them.. Not that they were not clear before hand.. it is just that communication is such an important part of everyday life and folks seem to be forgetting this all the time.. I appreciate any one that tries to make that connection more plain.. Well done mate! carry on!

Absolutely brilliant. Of interest to anyone, but specifically those not necessarily interested in energy storage problems. I rate Robert as one of the best speakers (and experts) I have listened to this year. He knows his subject. But that is not enough to keep him going. What does it all mean? Thanks, Rob. I want to add this, merely as an observation having watched many such videos, Rob explains something so fundamental that I am embarrassed for the other KZfaqrs who even attempt the subject. That is, to my mind, the gap, being inversely proportional to the capacitance, ceases to be of significance in the definition of what it is but becomes decisive as a definition of what it can no longer do.

Thanks again for sharing this, I found the relation between the three fascinating, and also have a similar view. I have spent a lot of time and research in this same field of energy storage and I also have had some to the same understanding as you have, thanks again.

"There is a degree of CHAIRNESS" Love it! Permission to use it🤗 BTW, I made a crank generator with supercaps I bought from China. Although I am not confident the supercap specs are correct, I can run led lights for hours, or change my phone using a small voltage regulator.

Thank you. I love your videos. They are all so clear and precise and factual. I’m 68 and I wish that you had been at my college teaching me Physics and Chemistry 55 or so years ago. I am watching all your videos and planning to build motors and batteries and solar cells and and and. I’m like a kid in a sweet shop! That’s why I’m here watching your talk on Capacitors. I do have a couple of questions relating to your intro about chairs and tables etc. So here goes. When is a Door, Not a Door? And, What is an Occasional Table the rest of the time? Thank you again for the brill vids.

Thanks Rob! You've inspired me start using the Graphene Ink I bought from you last year. Thank you for your great information as always.

Just got inspired on what I can try with my atmospheric antenna. This might just change my garden next year. Had positive results trying to harness électroculture principles drawing off magnetic field with diferent alloys... thank you for vidéo!

Spot on! clear as crystal! Now I have even more questions, admire your show and efforts!

A wonderful explanation and it has really helped the understanding of this complex topic. Another point I would like to add is that capacitors and super capacitors charge and discharge on an exponential curve. Batteries tend to have a much flatter charge and discharge curve. With the use of modern day high efficiency dc-dc inverters a variable input voltage from a discharging super capacitor can be converted to an almost constant voltage and it would then appear very similar to a battery. Available power storage is also dependent on low internal resistance. Electrolytic capacitors are quite low but some super capacitors can be a bit higher. Batteries are still the winner here I believe with very low internal resistance but I could need correcting as I am not up with the latest developments. Great video and loved the chair versus table metaphor.

This is a great video and I find you easy to follow due to your delivery. Thank you for Sharing I have enjoyed many of them.

Superb. Thank you for taking the functional view. (And thank you for the qualification of definition depends on what function you wish to perform or expect.)

Really excellent epistemology lecture. Categories and definitions are things people created - TOOLS to navigate reality, not reality itself. Use them as long as they are useful, and drop them as soon as they are limiting. The real world and nature and forces and even people have too many grey areas for us to cope with, but when we have to face a grey area we can't just retreat to our comfortable categories and say anything that doesn't fit is prohibited or doesn't exist. The messy version is the real world, the clean version is the fake we made to make things simpler for ourselves (and it would be hard to understand anything if we didn't). It brings to mind Magritte's painting of a tobacco pipe labelled "Ceci n'est pas une pipe." (This is not a pipe). No matter how perfectly it represents the thing, it is not the thing. If it were a pipe, you could smoke it!

Thanks Robert , clears things up for me .

"Catergorisation", Well Put RMS. Interesting Initials Robert. So Theoretically, We Build a Hybrid Capacitor/Battery. Which I Now Call the CapBat or BatCap. Thankyou Robert for Encouraging this Invention Out of Me. Oh, The Super Cap is Already a CapBat?. Thankyou RMS for the Wisdom of a Chemist.

you said some things that were really interesting to me because I never really thought about them, like the double layers on the carbon (I thought double layers were mostly found in plasma physics and space), and that a traditional electrostatic capacitor is kinda like the electronic version of two magnets. I'm gonna let those rattle around for a bit. I love when you explain things explanations probably the most. my favourite one still is the explanation for the strange capacitor video :)

Thank you for helping to understand the grey-areas between these devices. 😊👍

What a very complicated topic, thank you for breaking it down in such fine detail. I like the idea of solar and capacitors but I've always been a bit intimidated because lack of understanding and risk of shock. They seem like a good buffer to use as for the load from panel to capacitor to DC converter or ac inverter. I like the idea of usable solar energy with a detected battery but I guess in that senario it might be concierge a battery idk. Have you tested all the new buck boost converters from China lately? I don't know why but I'm fainted by there different specs. They also seem to do well from a panel to a load apliance. Great video!

I've been waiting for this video! GREAT answer! Thank you.

Excellent information, good explination, and kind of a way to develope a course of action.

Fully agree 👍 ps just made a super cap with parcel packaging paper ( no clay in it ) panted both sides with pva and graphite polished the surfaces then added stadium sulphate to some shoe glue or should I say Ethyl acetate methylcydohexane which also acts as the separator then used it to stick on two aluminium current collectors, works very well and the electrolyte doesn’t dry out 👍 .. trying to put together a quick charge array to catch my wind turbine ,wind gusts in the garden so far so good, my lead acid batteries would be to slow and miss the power from the turbine in my garden.

What a wealth of knowledge!

Fantastic discussion Robert! Watching your videos is inspirational. I picture you as the modern day equivalent of a Maxwell, Faraday, Edison. Only hope you discover some brand new property / characteristic of some combo of materials that provide vast energy properties! Couple of quick (and maybe silly) questions but ... 1. In quite a few of your vids there is some sort of 'sheet metal' noise at various points. Is there a nearby shop ? 2. What are the makes and models of the two pieces of test equipment behind you under the window ? 3. What are the white grid-like structures protruding from the windows, some sort of drying racks ? Thanks and keep up the great work sir!

A video on the epistemology of capacitors !. Bravo Sir

Very helpful! Thank you!

Good example about the difference between a stool and a table, it's the function not the look that defines it and being fixated on the look can take you down the wrong alley. In these trying times, it's a good analogy to use in terms of race and identity. So it's better to look at a person's function or personality rather than their identity or race and to get fixated on race is going down the wrong alley.

Hi Robert thanks for explanation, not sure if you remember in our discussion, I mentioned the electrolyte briefly and I suggested a form of sodium silicate may be practical from the research I'd done, part of my theory was that the sodium anon and hydrogen anons have opposite charges, meaning that instead of only getting say -2.1v from sodium (can't remember exact voltages or polarity) you also get +3.6v from the hydrogen giving a combined voltage of say 5.7v per cell, as sodium silicate poly/nonahydrate could also be mixed with carbon and then baked into a form of glass wouldn't this hold both chemicals in position but still allow the anons to flow easily through the carbon or have I got this wrong?

Excellent video, thanks for sharing!

Is there a noticeable difference between the electrolyte used? If I use common salt would it withstand less voltage than sodium fluoride, or is the electrode more important?

I think your answer was quite complete and considered, it in fact broadened my perception of the issue so thank you.

Great explanation on a subject that has puzzled me for some time. Thank you.

Very good explanation of caps.

ah another water analogy for explaining electricty I love it, also I love the way you broke down the dielectric effect and it explains how pulling the metal away with out releasing the molecules in the dielectric was why RWG was able to reassemble his after touching it all with his hands and getting nothing but yet once put together the power zapped back out of the giant capacitor he made with I think PE plastic sheet or teflon or something, and two big thick aluminum plates :)

Thank you a great explanation of a capacitor

You explained it very well. Unfortunately a lot of people just want a free high amp hour battery that someone else developed ... Great video, keep em coming.

Now I know why capacitors have always been difficult for me to understand! Great video. Very impressive in one take too. Thank you.

Really glad you said “wheres the difference damn it “ as i have been thinking i must be missing something and resigned to not understanding the physical difference enough ! 😂

Your explanation is very understandable....THANKS

Love the analogy’s , my head hurts every time I watch , I’m learning 😊

very informative!

I'm feeling much better about my fuzzy understanding of the differences being due to the differences actually being somewhat fuzzy. 😋 And any technical explanation that involves balloons (or flowers, for future reference) will automatically get a "thumb's up" from me!! 😄

Very lovely video 🙂 Thanks

As super capacitor technology progressed I always wondered if it could be combined with battery technology to create a hybrid that took advantage of the desired characteristics of both. A battery that stored energy, charged, and discharged rapidly. To some extent that is happening. Although the same result is achievable with improved discrete devices a single package could eliminate bulk. As you said though, the distinction is starting to fade. As both technologies advance I suspect the distinction will further decline,

Just like that chair Robert and his podcast has transformed into something far more important

Would it also be accurate to use a sponge instead of a balloon for comparison? With different material representing different sponges with varying capacities for absorption/storage of charge? And that when the saturation point is reached you run the risk of the charge attempting to neutralize itself somewhere? Thanks for any reply :) Love/appreciate you guys

Respect and gratitude

congrats and thank you. if possible, show us each one working same work...

THANK YOU! my goal is to make a rechargeable aluminum battery, to power my E bike, i know you got really close to do so, but we didnt get any updates of progress!

Very interesting.

Yup. Couldn’t have said it better m’self. All energy storage devices. How you want the energy to come out determines which you choose.😎👍

Thank you, sir

How would you step down the 20kv from a coil to 12v, with out losing all the amperage? It's something I've been playing with for some time!

"...That's OK, Thumbs-me-down..." lol 😆 that cracked me up for some reason.

i like this stuff.

I like the fact your explanations make you think therefore you learn. How do you feel about the statement. "Plumbers, electricians, and those who work on pneumatic and hydraulic systems are using the same principles in their jobs

I appreciate your explanation and as an electronic engineer I also view capacitors at there base level as energy stores because well that's what they are lol

so what are sudoo capacitor?

If a lithium ion battery works that way. Why can't you fold it on itself and it would be charged again? Or have a separator that has opposite poles and can be moved to charge it up?

Hi Pal :)) Many blessings for your the man I think quite genuinely my friend, I love all your many Power Gen videos very much and in that light I have been sat upon a genuine perpetual engine I'd dearly appreciate your canny with and subscribers ultimately public domain viewing asim especially somewhat oppression at odds with my actually doing this as is now for sometime now and feel that inb

Random question, are those new compact booster packs made from super Capacitors?

Robert have you looked at the liquid metal battery for storage of power

punctiliously correct! thx for the video

Drinking Coffee from my New Mug! Thank You Robert

Aah.....a question I wanted to ask but too afraid to do so...👍 Anyway, I think I may be even more confused now (but in a positive, inquisitive way). Thanks Rob. PS don’t let my elderly mother see that mug or she’ll be over there to putbleach in it 😂

i wonder what would happen if you connect a electret to a super capacitor or a series of?

So it's like Darwin talked about in the Origin of Species. What we categorize today as clearly different species would become far more of a grey area if we could have studied the creatures millions of years ago before the genetic branching took place. In this case human "fiddling about" may come to separate the components more in the future but at this point in time the divisions aren't as clear. Very nice job and kudos of a very impressive use of your lock-down time with video and project production at an all time high.

Considering the Dunass Effect, what are your thoughts?

Capacitors are an interesting subject and not straight forward. I have some in the shed that would blow the tip of a screwdriver away! Don't ask how I know! They are quite large and store up a lot of energy, they can be made to release it slowly or all at once, all at once can be quite spectacular. They are of the size you do not want to play with. I had even bigger ones, but I got rid of them as they were just to dangerous to keep if they got a charge.

Robert have you ever tried pulse charging.

Thanks

So many folks have not sat in a lab where there is no instructor, only text and tools. While there is much power there for learning how to learn, having an instructor talk about a subject using his or her on concepts is more like watching a ship's captain vs a teacher. The watching the captain teaches you to respect the art of knowing how finesse comes from experience. The teacher returns you to the text until you can reproduce what the book teaches. Which can be crippling.

brilliant

Rob I've Just Built An Ebike With A Homemade LiOn Battery But I Put A Big Juicy 15000 uF 63 volt RS Capacitor In Parallel With The Battery Pack , Why ? Because My Thinking Is That When I Pull The Throttle The Sag On The Battery Will Be Soaked Up By The Capacitor . I'm Gonna Do A Little Video About The Bike Soon Explaining The Setup And More Have A Great Day Earthling

Rob, where can I hire someone like you?? :)

Also same chair could be used as many different things, so use has lots to do with it. Function.

Yes it did await the next video

Old airplane mechanic here, always fascinated with the notion That lithium ion batteries store amperage first then store the voltage, and that once discharged below 2.5 volts they can’t be recharged, then there’s that nasty runaway heating that turns into fire. Do super caps have stability issues too?

I would say that knowing what functions are going on one could even purposefully cross breed reactions based on aspects of the devices and even go further to say build a battery that is also built on chemistry used in LED crystal units, so that while it is discharging it is not creating all its waste energy as heat, but rather enough of the waste energy is visible light so the battery could function as a headlight at the same time in an electric car as well as power storage to release electrical energy for the motors heaters in the car, to run a computer for controlling navigation or assisting, charging that cell phone from a USB port in the car, and running the speakers and processor for the MP3 player or radio LOL. I would think too if you could engineer it to release some of the waste energy caused by discharge as light, in the visible spectrum it would allow it to run cooler too, by redirecting where that heat is going right away in the form of that visible light, so when not using the headlights, just flip a mirror over it to redirect it to the ground or something, rather than covering it and absorbing it causing the heat to be generated as it absorbs say in a black ceramic matt texturing converting it from the visible to the IR spectrum or the tail light area or something what ever, ground effect anything is better than letting it become heat that backs up in the battery so that it could possibly overload the dissipation equipment in it, and cause unwanted chemical reactions that are harder to be undone, than the ones that the battery maker wants so that they can be undone for adding power back into it so it can be released again. Again really getting me thinking, :)

Some people just love to hate .I enjoy all of your videos !

A capacitor is a device that stores charge and energy in a capacitance. Batteries differ from capacitors in that they release charge at about the same voltage for a large amount of the charge they can release, rather than having voltage be proportional to the amount of charge remaining.

Okay, so when you're playing with electrostatic, the "capacitor" is a couple of plastic jars lined with aluminum foil with a spark gap in between. Couldn't you just replace the jars with a couple of supercaps, eliminate the spark gap, turn the handle on your wimshurst machine a few times, then use the supercaps to power your can opener or something? It can't be that simple or we'd be seeing the infomercials on such a device all over the place. What am I missing?

Malcolm Bendall used a 100nm UV lamp to excite the air in his plasmoid generator wonder if that would help on your set up, 🤔

And here Ladies and Gentlemen is an example of knowledge that have taken men to the moon and beyond , I'm absolutely amazed ,thank you 🤗