Capacitor to store lightning?

[MacGyver1968]

Note to MacGyver:

The patent office's class for electric circuits that charge a capacitor is the same for circuits that charge a battery.

Scroll down this list until you find class number 320 and you'll see what I mean.

http://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/classification/selectnumwithtitle.htm

I still haven't sent in my application yet, but my charging circuitry MAY be able to charge batteries as well. Charging a battery wasn't covered in my electronics school, but I should be able to find out whether I can modify my patent application for this purpose.

There's no need to use large fonts to get my attention. I'm only 42, and don't need reading glasses....yet!

While they may be in the same class, that does not mean they are interchangeable. Had you had a little more than 3 months training in the most basic of dc circuits, you would know this. Batteries can suffer from overcharging if current is continuously pumped through them, that why charging circuits reduce the flow as the battery nears a full charge. Caps don't suffer from this.

 

[MacGyver1968]

Oh...and here are my qualifications:

I graduated with honors.

 

[Billy T]

... Three thousand 200KV caps wired in series can be charged up to 600MV of DC electricity.

Only on paper diagrams. In the real world there would be many huge arcs at much lower voltages.
Have you never seen a high voltage power substation? - Its meters long insulators, even with peak voltages 1000 times lower than that.

You are not only very ignorant of all this, but delusional too.

 

[MacGyver1968]

I didn't change history at all. I didn't mention current dividers by name because I was still trying to preserve my right to earn a patent application. Any disclosure by publication of the technical part of the application jeopardizes it.

Bravo Sierra (BS). You made the claim that you were the one who first brought it up in the discussion, when you clearly did not. You can't patent a voltage/currrent divider, as it a basic electronic circuit. It's the very first thing they teach you in the first week at ITT. I still don't understand how you plan to design control circuitry without any transistor theory training.

 

[BennyF]

There's no need to use large fonts to get my attention. I'm only 42, and don't need reading glasses....yet!

Humble apologies, kind sir. I'm getting to the stage where I need them myself, at least for printed newspapers. You're more experienced in some things than I am, so I thought you must be older than I am, but you're not.

While they may be in the same class, that does not mean they are interchangeable. Had you had a little more than 3 months training in the most basic of dc circuits, you would know this. Batteries can suffer from overcharging if current is continuously pumped through them, that why charging circuits reduce the flow as the battery nears a full charge. Caps don't suffer from this.

Current from lightning lasts less than a second, so I don't think that I'll have to worry about any overcharged batteries, and please remember, my cap bank will be disconnected from the collection equipment sometime during the first strike, probably right at the peak.

If this happens the way I think it will, I'll miss a few million volts, but I'll also miss any discharged caps due to the difference between the maximum cap charge (at peak) and the sharply reduced level of voltage at the tail end of the lightning bolt.

Sorry, but I don't think I can tell you how I plan on doing this, because the patent office might consider it a publication of technical details. All I can safely say is that this technology was available 30 years ago.

 

[BennyF]

You can't patent a voltage/currrent divider, as it a basic electronic circuit. It's the very first thing they teach you in the first week at ITT. I still don't understand how you plan to design control circuitry without any transistor theory training.

I don't plan on trying to patent a cap bank. Patents are sometimes granted for improvements to existing inventions. I've seen the law citations and the patent office regulations. All that's necessary is to make a clear distinction between what has already been patented (including the original claims) and what you're NOW trying to patent, including your new claims.

Transistors were covered in class, but I don't need them in my circuits. I'm going to use a different technology to charge my (theoretical) caps in the patent application.

Keep guessing, MacGyver, you'll get it someday.

 

[BennyF]

Note to MacGyver:

There. Is that better?

OK, you've twisted my arm, and it's hurting REAL BAD. I'll tell you everything. Well, almost everything.

I'm going to improve upon the basic current/voltage divider. As I've said before, the relevant patent class is for charging a capacitor or a battery. My circuitry will do that. At this time (pre-patent-submission) I don't think I need to specify that the incoming voltage source will be lightning, with hundreds of millions of volts and tens of thousands of amps. I think all I need to do is to show the circuit diagrams, including my special improvement on a bank of capacitors, and that will earn me a United States Patent.

One more time. I have PERSONALLY searched the patent office website. I have determined that class number 320 is the one that my application will likely go into. I have determined that subclass number 166 is the one that my application will likely go into. There aren't many patents in class #320 and subclass #166, but I've read enough of ALL OF THEM to know that nobody has patented my special improvement on the basic idea of a bank of capacitors.

All I need to try to patent is the improvement, and that's that.

Got it, MacGyver?

 

[BennyF]

Note to MacGyver: (and others)

Unless you make a special request to the patent office for an expedited examination of your application, it can take two years from the day you apply until the day they issue your patent.

If you're willing to sit at your teletype (man, am I ever dating myself) from now until then, I'll be glad to announce my official patent number, with many thanks to everybody who helped me along the way.

No, my acceptance speech will NOT be shown at any Academy Award presentation.

Benny

 

[Captain Kremmen]

You might be interested to know that when Tom Edison invented the light bulb, major players were working on alternatives to the kerosene lamps that were lighting America's homes, but he didn't care. He simply made filaments out of every material he could think of, and tested them one at a time until he installed the filament made out of tungsten, which kept burning for hours, instead of burning out in seconds as the others had done.

Amazing. Wrong in nearly every detail. How do you cram so many errors into two sentences?

The True History of Electric Lighting

1809 - Humphry Davy, an English chemist, invented the first electric light. Davy connected two wires to a battery and attached a charcoal strip betwween the other ends of the wires. The charged carbon glowed making the first arc lamp.


1820 - Warren De la Rue enclosed a platinum coil in an evacuated tube and passed an electric current through it. His lamp design was worked but the cost of the precious metal platinum made this an impossible invention for wide-spread use.

1835 - James Bowman Lindsay demonstrated constant electric lighting system using a prototype lightbulb.

1850 - Edward Shepard invented an electrical incandescent arc lamp using a charcoal filament. Joseph Wilson Swan started working with carbonized paper filaments the same year.

1854 - Henricg Globel, a German watchmaker, invented the first true lightbulb. He used a carbonized bamboo filament placed inside a glass bulb.

1875 - Herman Sprengel invented the mercury vacuum pump making it possible to develop a practical electric light bulb. Making a really good vacuum inside the bulb possible.

1875 - Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans patented a lightbulb.


1878 - Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (1828-1914), an English physicist, was the first person to invent a practical and longer-lasting electic lightbulb (13.5 hours). Swan used a carbon fiber filament derived from cotton.

1879 - Thomas Alva Edison invented a carbon filament that burned for forty hours. Edison placed his filament in an oxygenless bulb. (Edison evolved his designs for the lightbulb based on the 1875 patent he purchased from inventors, Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans.)

1880 - Edison continued to improved his lightbulb until it could last for over 1200 hours using a bamboo-derived filament.

1903 - Willis Whitnew invented a filament that would not make the inside of a lightbulb turn dark. It was a metal-coated carbon filament (a predecessor to the tungsten filament).

1906 - The General Electric Company were the first to patent a method of making tungsten filaments for use in incandesent lightbulbs. The filaments were costly.

1910 - William David Coolidge (1873-1975) invented an improved method of making tungsten filaments. The tungsten filament outlasted all other types of filaments and Coolidge made the costs practical.

1925 - The first frosted lightbulbs were produced.

1991 - Philips invented a lightbulb that lasts 60,000 hours. The bulb uses magnetic induction.


http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bllight2.htm


I wonder if Philips were able to patent that light bulb.
I should think that induction was seen as a possibility very early.

 

[phlogistician]

You might be interested to know that when Tom Edison invented the light bulb,

Sorry Bub, but it was Sir Humphrey Davey that invented the lightbulb. Edison merely improved upon Davey's invention.

If that is the strength of your knowledge in inventions, you'd best give up. Mind you, you failed to accept that capacitors block DC when this thread started.

Ah, I see Kremmen destroyed you on this already. Bravo Kremmen.

 

[Captain Kremmen]

Lets hope he knows more about lightning than lighting.

Davy invented the first arc light, not the first light bulb.
He may even have got a suntan from it.

Benny also said somewhere that it is impossible to patent a perpetual motion machine. I feel he's wrong about that as well. Not sure.
If inventions needed to be reasonable and workable, why are there whole libraries filled with crackpot patents?
Will look it up.
Or perhaps Benny can tell us.

 

[Billy T]

... Benny also said somewhere that it is impossible to patent a perpetual motion machine. I feel he's wrong about that as well. Not sure. ...

Benny's right about this, but may just been quoting an earlier post of my where I said:

When patent application arrives at USPTO an experienced administrative secretary opens and reads the claims. Usually just to determine to which examination section it should be sent; but if it claims either a perpetual motion or over unity device that secretary hits key on her computer to bring up the standard reject letter, types in the applicants name and address, and tosses the application in the waste paper box. Those patents are not even read.

Initially Benny's would have gone straight to the trash can as he was thinking voltage was energy and knew how to step up the voltage to make more energy, he thought. - I.e. Benny started out with an over unit device idea he thought he could patent.

In this post: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2512112&postcount=153 I explained to Benny that it was not the voltage being used up in battery but the chemical energy. After that post and dozens of other posts by many, Benny finally understood (I think) that voltage is not energy. He is an extremely slow learner, but does seem to have some capacity to learn.

 

[Captain Kremmen]

Ah, I knew someone said it.
Why are there so many patents then Billy?

Are they just trivial? Or of very limited use?

A good proportion must just not work surely.


Re Posting Certificates.
I could dig out my certificate from a drawer somewhere.
It's in English and Philosophy.

 

[Billy T]

Why are there so many patents then Billy?...

There are a lot of people like Benny who think the first thing to do is to make patent application (before someone else steals your idea). Later they will see if there is anyone interested in it. (Check out both its practicality and the economics.) - At least two carts before the horse.

Most patents are totally without any utility. A patent ONLY gives the right to try to stop others from using your invention - For more than 90% of patents issued, no one wants to use them so they are totally useless. (There is no one to stop).

As some poster noted, people do tend to fall in love with their idea. People in love are often blind to the practical facts* and economics. This is a big factor too in why there are so many useless patents.

*In recent post Benny claimed he could make 600 million volts with his circuit diagram - totally blind to fact that even a voltage 1000 times less has great problems trying to avoid arcs to the ground in a high voltage power stations. Now that Benny is no longer trying to patent an over unity device he probably can get a patent - adding one more to the large number of useless patents.

Benny is in love with his idea and does not want to see / understand the many problems, even when they are repeated explained to him by many.

 

[Captain Kremmen]

It's also a big cash cow for the Government issuing patents.

Is there any chance that Billy's idea could produce a better battery?
Any improvement in battery efficiency is a holy grail for the next half century at least.

 

[Captain Kremmen]

No posts......................waiting.................still no posts........................

Oh no.
The Capacitor thread isn't over is it?

I loved this thread.
:bawl:

 

[Billy T]

It's also a big cash cow for the Government issuing patents.

Is there any chance that Billy's idea could produce a better battery?
Any improvement in battery efficiency is a holy grail for the next half century at least.

I am not sure that the cost of the USPTO is covered by the fees charged. Why do you think they are?

My idea was not for a better battery but to react two cheap substances (methane and water) to form two much more valuable substances (drinking alcohol and hydrogen gas) with the (excuse my pride) clever idea of using a "palladium leak" to rapidly remove the H2 so that effectively three molecules are becoming only one.

2CH4 + H2O ---> C2H6O + 2H2

but the H2 is always of very low concentration as it passes thru the warm palladium as it if were not there but that palladium barrier does keep all other molecules inside the high pressure chamber. BTW that palladium is a small diameter (< 1mm ID) tube with low pressure on the inside to easily take the high pressure outside of it without failure. I still cannot tell how my catalyst is made as that is the heart of my invention. It (and the high temperature) causes the water splitting subreaction:

H2O --> H+H+O on the surface of the catalyst. This surface reaction is essential as it makes the reaction immune to the high pressure which would strongly drive the reaction the other way (H+H+O ---> H2O) if it were in the gas phase.

This palladium and catalyst allows high pressure to strongly favor the the reaction; But there is no battery, however, H2 produced could be used in a fuel cell.

Unfortunately, I dare not test my idea. It is not because I fear an explosion due to a faulty high-temperature high-pressure reaction chamber. It is that if it works and drinking alcohol is free to me*, I will never be sober again. OR :bawl: ???? :shrug:

-------------------
*Free as water is being converted into alcohol and methane is being converted into the much more valuable gas hydrogen, which I sell.**

** The only draw back to my HLL catcher invention is it is costly to operate, but it provides a generous supply of Hot Liberal Ladies and as I have free alcohol for all, how can I not rejoice?? (Or should I say "rejuice" all as the effects of the ETOH start to wear off?)

 

[Billy T]

... The correct formula for ethanol is C2H5OH.

Try not to look for the speck in my eye until after you've removed the log out of your own eye.

No, again you show your lack of knowledge of the field (chemistry this time).
I gave the most standard formula used for ethyl alcohol in my reaction equation:

2CH4 + H2O ---> C2H6O + 2H2

Sometimes chemists do give an alternative when they want to illustrate the structure of the molecule. Then ethyl alcohol is written as:

CH3–CH2-OH

which shows that the carbon at one end of the molecule has its four bounds filled by three hydrogens and the C-C link to the other Carbon atom. This other carbon atom has its four bounds satisfied by the C-C bond, two hydrogen bonds (off to the sides of the molecule) and instead of a third hydrogen bond at the end (which would make it ethane) that ethane hydrogen has been replaced by the OH radical.

Your formula:

C2H5OH

Is a bastardized version with no utility !!!!

In compact notation (not structural notation) no atom written more than once. You have for no good reason written the H twice. You could go further with this stupidity and in extreme write:

HCHCHOHH

At least this has the virtue of not using any numbers but instead graphically showing the preponderance of hydrogen. Your bastardized formula has no virtue at all !!! (If I am wrong about this, please tell me what virtue it has.) Your formula is bastardized - a hybrid between the compact notation and the structural notation, sort of like writing start of a sentence in German and ending it with English. - A STUPID IDEA.

Get the log out of your arrogant eye. There is no speck in mine so I can see that log very clearly.

Benny, your are a very arrogant, ignorant, reluctant, slow learner, even when you do manage to learn a little.

 

[Captain Kremmen]

He thought you were talking about oxidation of methane rather than a catalysed reaction between water and methane.

I thought the same myself.

 

[BennyF]

Benny also said somewhere that it is impossible to patent a perpetual motion machine. I feel he's wrong about that as well. Not sure.
If inventions needed to be reasonable and workable, why are there whole libraries filled with crackpot patents?
Will look it up.
Or perhaps Benny can tell us.

Or perhaps I can tell you to go screw yourself with an electric drill. The open contempt I've seen from posters I used to trust and respect has been so shocking, I've found it hard to write on this board, but now I've learned the hard way that when somebody starts throwing mud, it's best to simply throw it back, thus enforcing the Golden Rule that I read somewhere.

When I mentioned perpetual motion machines, I was quoting someone else, so don't try misquoting me, because you'll only be misquoting the other guy. Either way, your pitiful attempt at humor badly needs a strong dose of nitrous oxide before anyone will laugh.

Your library may well be filled with "crackpot" patents, but the first man to charge a cap using a naturally occurring 400MV source will find the world beating a path to his door. His invention will make the DOE update its' list of renewable energy resources, and if the lightning collection equipment is installed in parts of the country where lightning occurs frequently, the death and injury rate will see a significant drop.

I doubt that I'll post much more on this board. There's very little real exchange of information here, except of course for the detailed schematics that some people have been asking for. Just by sheer coincidence, they're the same details that would prevent me from obtaining a patent, so their requests will go into the same circular filing cabinet that I put last week's grocery list into.

Have fun with your own patent applications, Captain. I can't wait to see you send h2-filled mylar balloons into the stratosphere, tied to the earth with a silver-plated fishing line. Let's compare patents in five years, shall we?