Capacitor to store lightning?

[phlogistician]

Every one of your posts is focused on trying to make me look silly, not on any serious discussion of electricity, circuits, lightning, economics, or electrochemistry. When you want to discuss any of these topics, please let me know by writing something that doesn't attack me personally.

Boo hoo for you, Benny. When you write crap like this;

Insulators usually block current, but when two conductive materials are separated by a very thin insulator, and a DC voltage is applied across both of the conductors, an electric field grows around the insulator, effectively allowing the DC current to keep flowing.

That shows me that you know very little about electronics. It's a schoolboy error, Benny. Anybody who has really studied electronics knows capacitors block DC. But you denied that, made excuses, and then, even after I proved my qualifications, tried wriggling to say it wasn't mine. You just cannot accept that you were wrong, can you?

On economics, you yourself have stated that this thread is not about the economics, but I have posted about that;

A lightning strike contains 1-10Billion joules of energy.

The world's largest capacitor bank can only store 50MegaJoules of energy, and cost €10 million. You cannot afford to make your device.

I "don't seem to understand" something? Really, Phil. Try rewriting that sentence so it leaves out the insult and I might respond.

Look, you didn't understand how capacitors work, and they are the fundamental component in your device. That makes you look silly. I don't care if you feel insulted, really, as you half baked ideas are an insult to the people here who have studied electronics.

Serious discussions involve lots of back-and-forth information regarding scientific topics, without anybody saying "you failed" or "you're ignorant". If you want to discuss science, please do so and don't harp on anybody's past errors. You've made a few yourself, you know.

Oh, Benny, you're funny. You didn't understand how capacitors, the fundamental component in your device work, but you don't want to dwell on 'past errors', and despite the fact you got how they work completely wrong, your circuits all still work as you think in your head? Benny, how can the function of a component change (in your thought experiment) and not change the function of the device they are part of?

If I have made some errors on this thread, please point them out to me, btw.

Besides, I'd like to hear your ideas. Tell us how you'd design some circuitry to capture, collect, and store hundreds of millions of volts of DC electricity, coming at you at a peak amperage of approximately 100KA. You've been very vocal about criticizing MY ideas. Let's see your own, for the sake of contrast and for the sake of some new information.

Benny

Eh, I already did, shows how much attention you have been paying to the thread. The only way to get energy out of lightning, is to provide it with a path to ground (low impedance, no insulators, like capacitors in the way) and use inductance loops around the lightning rod to tap off some energy. That approach is being investigated by Alternate Energy Holdings (AEH).

 

[Trippy]

I was going to raise the point that harnessing the lightening discharge probably isn't the smartest thing to do, because the lightening is the end point of an accumulation in a system that is effectively a giant capacitor to begin with.

And that there has been successful work done in using LASER's to guide lightning bolts.

But I see Pete beat me to it on the first page.

I think the smart thing to do would be to have a bank of LASER's connected to batteries using the charge difference between the upper atmosphere (or so) and the crust to trickle charge something like this.

 

[phlogistician]

And that there has been successful work done in using LASER's to guide lightning bolts.

Yeah, apparently both IR and UV lasers can be used. UV ionises oxygen to make a path to ground, and IR heats atmospheric dust into a conducting plasma.

Thing is, the LASER required has to be pretty powerful. In the paper I read, it was 20,000MW from two CO2 LASERs. That's quite an initiation overhead. Even on microsecond pulses, that's more outlay of energy for initiation than one whole lightning bolt is going to give back.

 

[Billy T]

... IR heats atmospheric dust into a conducting plasma. ...

I don't think you have the mechanism correct.

Even if the dust were glowing a dull red, it would not make a plasma. What the IR laser can do is warm the air and certainly dust in the air would facilitate that. Thus there would be a channel of expanded, lower density air. Then the Paschen effect would cause the break down to utilize this lower density channel.

Paschen may not be spelled correctly. But the dielectric strength of any gas is reduced with pressure, until you come to a very low pressure compared to atmospheric. You see the Paschen effect at work in "neon signs." Only a few thousand volts lites them up even if their discharge path is several meters long.

I explained the Paschen curve (breakdown voltage vs pressure) in another post in this thread* a few months ago =- Wiki should have more too.

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* Post is back in sections where Benny was claiming he could "store voltages" thousands of times greater than the lightning voltage. I pointed out that then the higher voltage components would need to be much higher than the clouds - actually reaching low orbit altitudes, given the physical size of the capacitors he would need. Then I noted that somewhere in this vertical stack of capacitors the atmosphere pressure would be at the Paschen minimum. As they were designed to operate in atmospheric pressure, the physical space between their "hot" and "cold" terminals is only a few inches. At the Paschen minimum, a few hundred volt would arc over that gap and short many capacitors in that altitude range out, especially as the UV from the first arc would reduce the brake down voltage even more. As their voltage was reduced to near zero the voltage on the remaining ones would increase and arc them over too.

As I worked with high voltage for nearly a decade, I could write a thin book, giving only related effects Benny is entirely ignorant of.

 

[phlogistician]

I don't think you have the mechanism correct.

Just repeating what I found in an abstract, ... I'll look for more sources, and see what they reckon.

 

[BennyF]

You did not just use the wrong word "voltage" when you should have used "energy" YOU HAD THE CONCEPTS WRONG* !!! You even spoke of using up a little bit of your stored voltage at a time to power your electrolyizer, etc. You still seem to think one can "store voltage" and have other stupid ideas.

When a capacitor is charged up by any DC source, the voltage level, as measured by a voltmeter, goes up. When it's discharged, the voltmeter registers a reduction in the voltage that corresponds to a loss of energy inside the cap. Voltage and energy aren't the same thing, but by measuring one, you can calculate the other one.

In your post 150 you let slip why your concepts were all wrong:
Because you thought voltage WAS energy and you knew how to multiply the voltage, you even thought you could violate the conservation of energy law, power your office building, make cheap hydrogen, etc. by stepping up the voltage.

Admitting you were stupidly ignorant would have been much smarter than trying to defend your errors or back peddle now and deny you ever said what you did. For example, no one makes fun of MacGyver because he did post something quickly that was stupid in post 114, especially as he later admitted it and deleted that post giving "stupidity" as the reason for deleting. We are all laughing at you as you behave differently and usually are posting some stupidity.

Don't laugh at anyone. You may find that they're better than you are at some things. You may even find yourself looking up at them, possibly quite literally if they attend classes in any one of several martial arts.

There are two ways of learning how to respect someone. Before someone smaller than you knocks you down, and after it happens. I've seen it from both sides.

 

[BennyF]

Boo hoo for you, Benny. When you write crap like this;

[He quoted something I wrote]

That shows me that you know very little about electronics. It's a schoolboy error, Benny. Anybody who has really studied electronics knows capacitors block DC. But you denied that, made excuses, and then, even after I proved my qualifications, tried wriggling to say it wasn't mine. You just cannot accept that you were wrong, can you?

Since you're STILL getting personal, there's nothing to reply to, Phil. Enjoy talking to yourself.

 

[BennyF]

I was going to raise the point that harnessing the lightening discharge probably isn't the smartest thing to do, because the lightening is the end point of an accumulation in a system that is effectively a giant capacitor to begin with.

You're correct when you say that the sky is a giant capacitor, and that lightning is the "failure" of that capacitor to hold its' charge. This same point has been made by the National Weather Service. However, there are other reasons for trying to collect the electricity from lightning. As I said pages ago, any bolt that hits the collection point of a high-capacity electricity-storage system won't hit anywhere else. As I also said pages ago, you could save many lives simply by installing grounded lightning rods in areas of the country where lightning is common, such as the NE corner of Florida.

I think the smart thing to do would be to have a bank of LASER's connected to batteries using the charge difference between the upper atmosphere (or so) and the crust to trickle charge something like this.

Interesting article, and very nice to see some progress made in the bottleneck, namely the electrical-storage capacity of the batteries.

I read the article, searching for any sign of a charging rate for these liquid batteries. The only hint I saw was in this paragraph.

The whole device is kept at a high temperature, around 700 degrees Celsius, so that the layers remain molten. In the small devices being tested in the lab, maintaining this temperature requires an outside heater, but Sadoway says that in the full-scale version, the electrical current being pumped into, or out of, the battery will be sufficient to maintain that temperature without any outside heat source.​

The charging rate is one of the differences between a cap and a rechargeable battery. Because ordinary rechargeable batteries take time to recharge, they cannot be fully charged by any electrical event that lasts less than a second, such as a lightning bolt. Perhaps these liquid batteries can serve the purpose. I sure hope so.

The paragraph I copied-and-pasted also mentioned that some energy from the source could be harnessed to maintain the liquid state of the battery. Well, that's just what the doctor ordered, because lightning has a lot of energy, and I've already documented the fact that the spot where a lightning bolt hits becomes four times hotter than the surface of the sun.

That should provide any liquid battery with enough heat to stay liquid for a long, long time.

 

[phlogistician]

Since you're STILL getting personal, there's nothing to reply to, Phil. Enjoy talking to yourself.

Benny, you denied that capacitors block DC. But somehow, despite the fact that you constructed a circuit based upon a misnomer, that circuit is still going to function as envisaged?

HORSE SHIT BENNY!

 

[WaterGuy]

Lightening

If you cannot predict the charge deposited by lightning, how can you adjust your wonder capacitor? Once arcing in a capacitor began, it's too late to adjust anything. Usually, lightnings last for less than 1 sec. Why would you want to store lightning? Despite impressive voltages, power of a lightning isn't that great.

You can use a coil to step down the many volts of electricity by simply grounding out your lightening rod/array. Using only a small portion of the usable current to charge the capacitors. I have used an automotive coil and a 200 ft cable and generated (without lightning) usable current stepping down the 10-50,000 volts to just 12 volts at 7 amps . Ground out the negative terminal to ground using a 6 foot grounding rod and you are somewhat safe. The high voltage from the cable can kill you. This is why many who have tried this are no longer heard from. Capacitors (super Capacitors ) hold up to 50 farads of usable energy but at only 2.5-3.7 volts large arrays of these need to be made to store enough voltage to run on a grid. Batteries are still at this time a better option however Capacitor research is gaining to a point where a hybrid capacitor and a lithium battery may be able to sustain itself for perhaps one year drawing current from something as simple as an earth battery.

 

[Billy T]

Welcome to sciforums.

You can use a coil to step down the many volts of electricity by simply grounding out your lightening rod/array. Using only a small portion of the usable current to charge the capacitors. I have used an automotive coil and a 200 ft cable and generated (without lightning) usable current stepping down the 10-50,000 volts to just 12 volts at 7 amps.

That is 84 W, more than enough, I guess, to make a powerful flashlight with a motorcycle or perhaps a car's headlight sealed beam.Tell more about your energy source. Were you stealing from the power company's moderate voltage lines? For example, the higher voltage side of a local transformer on pole near your house?

I would think you might have a thermal problem if connected very long as the automotive spark coils were designed for pulse, not continuous AC use.

... Capacitors (super Capacitors ) hold up to 50 farads of usable energy but at only 2.5-3.7 volts large arrays of these need to be made to store enough voltage to run on a grid.

I hope that "50 farads of usable energy" was just a typing accident and you meant to type 50 Joules, but I doubt that as you go on, like Benny, to speak of "storing voltage." Also 50 Joules ain't much - will keep a 100Watt light bulb shining for only half a second.

I also hope you are not just Benny back as a sock puppet. You seem to be making Benny type stupid errors.

Batteries are still at this time a better option however Capacitor research is gaining to a point where a hybrid capacitor and a lithium battery may be able to sustain itself for perhaps one year drawing current from something as simple as an earth battery.

That is at best "inadequate text" as you do not tell the load or how a Hybrid of capacitor would be used. If in parallel they could supply a peak current briefly greater than the battery could alone. Is that what you are thinking of?

Try posting again. Be more clear and careful.

 

[BennyF]

I explained the Paschen curve (breakdown voltage vs pressure) in another post in this thread* a few months ago =- Wiki should have more too.

Wiki will print anything. Did you write the Paschen curve article yourself?

---------

(The) Post is back in sections where Benny was claiming he could "store voltages" thousands of times greater than the lightning voltage. I pointed out that then the higher voltage components would need to be much higher than the clouds - actually reaching low orbit altitudes, given the physical size of the capacitors he would need.

If you're going to rehash an old argument, at least say so to my face, and without screaming this time, please.

When you "pointed out" that the hypothetical string of series capacitors would "need" to be higher than the clouds, you were wrong. As long as the tip of the lightning rod is higher than any other metallic object nearby, and as long as it's located in a geographic area that sees electrical storms, it will get struck by lightning bolts. The string of caps (or multiple strings of them, wired in parallel) can be lying on a non-conductive surface, a few feet from the earth so as not to produce any arcing with the earth itself.

Then I noted that somewhere in this vertical stack of capacitors the atmosphere pressure would be at the Paschen minimum. As they were designed to operate in atmospheric pressure, the physical space between their "hot" and "cold" terminals is only a few inches. At the Paschen minimum, a few hundred volt would arc over that gap and short many capacitors in that altitude range out, especially as the UV from the first arc would reduce the brake down voltage even more. As their voltage was reduced to near zero the voltage on the remaining ones would increase and arc them over too.

Since my current/voltage divider will be close to the ground, and not inside a depressurized container, the physical space between their "hot" and "cold" terminals will be far longer than a few inches.

As I worked with high voltage for nearly a decade, I could write a thin book, giving only related effects Benny is entirely ignorant of.

If you worked with high voltage for more than a month, you would know how easy it is to convert 400MV of DC into 1,000 volts using a voltage divider. All you really need is enough imagination to install tens of thousands of HV caps.

If you worked with high current for more than a month, you would also know how easy it is to convert 100KA into 1,000 amps using a current divider. All you really need is enough imagination to install a hundred current branches with identical components.

NOW who's ignorant?

 

[Billy T]

Wiki will print anything. Did you write the Paschen curve article yourself?

No. I have not even read it. However, I have measured the Paschen curve for air and pure nitrogen and helium during my 5th year at Cornell (a very special 5 year program, Engineering Physics, which was soon discontinued as too hard for undergraduates - half my class transferred out.)

When you "pointed out" that the hypothetical string of series capacitors would "need" to be higher than the clouds, you were wrong. As long as the tip of the lightning rod is higher than any other metallic object nearby, and as long as it's located in a geographic area that sees electrical storms, it will get struck by lightning bolts. The string of caps (or multiple strings of them, wired in parallel) can be lying on a non-conductive surface, a few feet from the earth so as not to produce any arcing with the earth itself.

That last is true, but then if the capacitors are all in parallel you would not have the 100 billion volts you claimed. I was only pointing out to you that if any point in your system has greater voltage than the voltage of the lightning bolt, that point must be higher than the clouds to avoid break down. You can not have it both ways: Either drop your claim that system can have voltages greater than the lightning or admit those points with that voltage must be higher than the cloud from which the lightning came.

If you like, I will re-post many (there are more than a dozen) of your posts that claim you intend to make huge voltages (one claim even states 100GV !!!) But my intent is not to embarrase you and I have already re-posted about a dozen of your stupid posts to show you are lying when now back peddling you say these claims were "ALWAYS" only "theoretical" or "mathematical" etc. (Note it was you who put "always" in capital letters, when making that lie.)

PS: If you want your nose rubbed more in the crap you have posted, just say so, and I will.
Until then, I refer readers to post 452 & 457 where many stupid posts of Benny's have already been re-posted in part.
If he wants more to be re-posted there are plenty more yet to chose from.

 

[Billy T]

... If you worked with high voltage for more than a month, you would know how easy it is to convert 400MV of DC into 1,000 volts using a voltage divider. All you really need is enough imagination to install tens of thousands of HV caps. ...

This ignorant statement of yours clearly show you do not even understand (except on paper) a voltage divider, which I will represent as:

V--a-RRRRRR-b-RRRRRR-c-RRRRRR – 0 volts or "ground" If you wish imagine there are capacitors between every pair of tap points - that is not important for

this discussion. RRRRRR represent the series resisters and, a, b, & c represent the "voltage tap points.” Note that if the resisters are all equal then Vc, the voltage of tap point c, with respect to ground, is 1/3 of V and that of b is 2/3 of V.

However also note that Va, the voltage of tap point a WITH RESPECT TO GROUND is the full V or in your stated case, 400MV.
This only works on paper as in the real world, the 400MV will arc to ground, unless point a is somewhere above the clouds.

There seems to be no limit to your ignorance and arrogance.

I have worked with very high voltage for nearly a decade on the controlled fusion problem, back in the early days when we all thought it would be solved in decade. The US Navy was, via the Applied Physic Laboratory, paying my salary as they thought they would be ordering a fusion powered aircraft carrier in about a dozen years and wanted their own knowledgeable team to help oversee the contractors. (The Navy did not expect our small group, four* physics Ph.D.s and a two technicians, to solve the problem – just to keep up with the field with “hands on” experiments with magnets, plasmas and high voltage problems.)

When after a decade of work physicists understood the many problems better, we realized that it would be several decades more, if ever, before we could "put the H-bomb in a bottle." So the Navy canceled our funding and I moved to APL's space department to work on spacecraft problems (I was part of the "tiger teams") but most of the time I was allowed to do whatever I wanted to as I really did not know much about design of space craft. My choice was mainly biomedical engineering work with doctors at JHU hospital and some unique energy projects, which I proposed and got funded by DOE and / or the US coast guard.

I was very fortunate in my 30 year career at APL. I was paid very well (as on the labs "principle staff") and mainly left alone to do whatever I liked so long as they could call on me to help figure out how to recover a sick satellite. (I am good at “thinking outside the box” and have a very good education. I joked that my relative ignorance about space craft design helped me suggest things the better informed could not think of, most of which were nonsense or at least impractical, but I did often open a new approach to the problem for others to follow.)
-------
* One physics Ph.D. was really a hot shot in high level math who understood the complex math of plasma instabilities and the second was keeping up with other parts of the theory, especially magnet design and its associated mechanical stresses, cooling problems, etc. (when not sleeping at his desk).

 

[BennyF]

That last is true, but then if the capacitors are all in parallel you would not have the 100 billion volts you claimed.

I really hate to have to do this to you, Billy, but you still have a learning disability, because you're STILL forgetting the explanation I provided weeks ago - rewiring the current divider into one long string of HV caps.

I was only pointing out to you that if any point in your system has greater voltage than the voltage of the lightning bolt, that point must be higher than the clouds to avoid break down. You can not have it both ways: Either drop your claim that system can have voltages greater than the lightning or admit those points with that voltage must be higher than the cloud from which the lightning came.

If you define "the system" as the intact current divider, whose branches each have a series of HV caps in them, forming thousands of individual voltage dividers, then yes, you're right. The "system" won't have 100GV of potential.

But if you were to re-wire it, it could. Try to remember this point, Billy. It's important.

If you like, I will re-post many (there are more than a dozen) of your posts that claim you intend to make huge voltages (one claim even states 100GV !!!) But my intent is not to embarrase you and I have already re-posted about a dozen of your stupid posts to show you are lying when now back peddling you say these claims were "ALWAYS" only "theoretical" or "mathematical" etc. (Note it was you who put "always" in capital letters, when making that lie.)

PS: If you want your nose rubbed more in the crap you have posted, just say so, and I will.
Until then, I refer readers to post 452 & 457 where many stupid posts of Benny's have already been re-posted in part.
If he wants more to be re-posted there are plenty more yet to chose from.

Then I'll refer you, the guy with the learning disability, to the language where I said that I "could" produce 100GV of potential, and this is still possible. Just charge up a current/voltage divider and then re-wire it, which I won't be doing in reality, since I have no need for that much potential voltage.

My caps will be discharged one at a time, just like I've been saying, and they'll be devoted to one of two loads, either an electrolyzer or my company's office equipment, through the use of a high-wattage inverter, just as I've been saying.

Benny

 

[Billy T]

Billy, but you still have a learning disability, because you're STILL forgetting the explanation I provided weeks ago - rewiring the current divider into one long string of HV caps. ... The "system" won't have 100GV of potential {when charged in parallel} but if you were to re-wire it, it could. ...

No it cannot! - 100GV will never occur. - Long before you get any where near that voltage you will have an arc to the ground.

Dozens of times you have claimed to be ABLE to actually make voltage greater than the lightning bolt that came from the clouds as an arc., Here you are still claiming that you could make 100GV by rewiring. Dozens of times I have told your this is impossible as it will arc to the ground.
How many times must I tell you this?

Are you trying for Guinness' record as world's slowest learner?

Or are you just incurably stupid?

 

[phlogistician]

Dozens of times I have told your this is impossible as it will arc to the ground.
How many times must I tell you this?

It's just numbers in his head. He has no grasp of the practical, mechanical, or physical side of this at all. He's just playing with circuit diagrams, and components that work perfectly in theory and I bet has never constructed many circuits from scratch, debugged them, replaced faulty, or components that don't match their spec.

I guess this course he went on was something quite specific, and vocational, like becoming a TV repairman, and he needs more education.

 

[BennyF]

Dozens of times you have claimed to be ABLE to actually make voltage greater than the lightning bolt that came from the clouds as an arc., Here you are still claiming that you could make 100GV by rewiring. Dozens of times I have told your this is impossible as it will arc to the ground.

Billy, YOU'RE the one that's incredibly stupid. Let me break it down for you. Make sure you have your reading glasses on, and make sure that you have some help for the big words.

1. Voltage dividers often use resistors to divide any voltage, whether there's current or not, into smaller pieces. Capacitors can be substituted for the resistors if the voltage is DC.
2. Current dividers divide current into separate pieces by forcing a large current to go through multiple current paths.
3. In any current divider that has identical components in each current path, the voltage is the same from one end of each path to the other end. This has the effect of multiplying the voltage, at the expense of the current, all in strict accordance with Ohm's Law.
4. A string of 100GV potential voltage can be constructed in theory, using re-wired HV caps that were charged up in a current/voltage divider.
5. I have no need for 100GV of potential voltage. This number, and the "tens of billions of volts" that I mentioned earlier, were numbers that only had a theoretical meaning. Multiple problems must be solved if anyone tries to put a theoretical concept like this into actual practice.
6. Despite the fact that I have no practical need for 100GV of potential, such as you might theoretically find in a string of HV caps that was re-wired from a current/voltage divider, I do hope to charge up many thousands of HV caps, using lightning as my sole source of electricity.

Billy, you have got to be one of the slowest learners in history.

Wise up.

 

[Billy T]

... 1. Voltage dividers often use resistors to divide any voltage, ... Capacitors can be substituted for the resistors if the voltage is DC. ...

Again you display your ignorance of the real world. You have only circuit diagram knowledge, at best.

Here is why you can not make a useful voltage divider out of a series string of capacitors instead of resistors:

All capacitors do have some internal resistance. Sometimes it is called their "leakage resistance" as it is why they self discharge when disconnected from the charging supply. In your Lightning charging case they are connected for a few ms only and you stated you plan to disconnect from the lightning rod even before the bolt is over.

The manufactures try to make this internal resistance very high, 100s of megohms or higher if they can but it varies greatly from one capacitor to the next and generally decreases with increase in temperature. Thus the voltage stored, after your few ms of charging in each capacitor would be discharging at very different RC time constants - not a predictable or even constant division of voltage.

For example, consider three series connected capacitors A, B & C of equal capacitance connected between a DC voltage of 3V and 0 or ground which is not disconnected. Initially it is true each will have a voltage of V between its two plates and a charge of Q (and-Q) on its plates. {Q = VC}

To keep it simple, perhaps even enough for you to understand, let's assume that capacitors A & C are perfect (have infinite internal resistance or at least very much higher than B) but B is not perfect.

As you have been repeatedly told, DC does not flow thru a capacitor so slowly the charge Q on capacitor B "leaks away" via its internal resistance. That is the the voltage on capacitor B approaches zero, as if it were shorted out.

This means that the voltage, 3V applied to the string, is now split between capacitors A & C only. I.e. each have voltage of 3V/2, which exceeds their voltage rating so they internally arc. With an arc, very little of the applied voltage is dropping across them. I.e. almost all of the 3V is now rapidly recharging capacitor B but it too is soon "over volted" and internally arcs.

This is why no one ever makes a high-voltage voltage divider with capacitors only as you suggest with your "paper only knowledge."

Admittedly I have illustrated with an extreme case with A & C assumed to be perfect and B is not. In practice with low voltage (no arc possible) you can connect several capacitors in series across a DC source and not have any problems but even then, if you have a good (high input impedance) volt meter (like an electrometer) you will measure that the voltage is NOT equally divided by equal capacitors because they have different internal resistances. Even if stated to be all the same capacitance, they are not. + or - 10% is quite usual. 1% resistors are available and not much more expensive than 10% ones.

Why don't you put your pencil down and get a soldering iron and learn at least a little about the real world of electrical circuits.

 

[MacGyver1968]

Ok...I'm a little confused...it's been a while since I breadboarded any circuits...

3Vdc 0----| |----| |----| |---0(gnd)

With this circuit...I don't see how current would flow...since the uncharged cap would act like an "open" and there wouldn't be any path to ground. Or if did charge, it would take quite sometime with the high internal resistance of the cap. Maybe I'll pull out my tacklebox full of components left over from school and wire it up.