highest voltage zamboni piles? (dry pile) - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / projects

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 01:43:57 am
content: Someone on the forum claimed that they saw a 80kV low current battery. To me it sounds like a zamboni pile.I heard of these getting to maybe 10kV or more. I read that early electrical experimenters actually worked with rather high voltages, in the 5kV range, from these sources. Quite different to how we learn today, from very low voltage sources at fairly high currents.How big did they make these, say for a 1920's physics lab.? Was there some big ones that lead to a hole being cut through the entire physics department from the roof going into the basement?I believe the disks do not need to be very thick, and you use metalized paper, which can be made rather thin. Something like 0.02mm.I think I read ben franklin had something like a meter tall pile on his desk @ 6kV

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 01:56:19 am
content: https://youtu.be/8hwLHdBTQ7s?si=5ETjhF0AwBM_rorG

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 02:01:32 am
content: Thats OK but the pile is highly compact. I would like to know how thin they made the layers.There is not many power sources that can do a handful of kV from something the size of.... smallI have not seen them, but there is a thermal imager here that claims to run on 5kV and it looks like the power source is probobly not much bigger then a 2 D-Cells.https://lampes-et-tubes.info/ic/ic009.php?l=fTenjujo paper is 0.02mm thick. And of course nowadays you can probobly get some special membrane that is thinner.Just keep in mind the current output is in the nano amps

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 09:22:11 am
content: https://inis.iaea.org/records/ns2yd-40946finally found a good one

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 10:10:24 am
content: Quote from: coppercone2 on July 19, 2025, 01:43:57 amThat reference (high voltage tester thread) was almost certainly mis-remembered. It was probably a 90V B126 valve radio battery, not 90kV.The old self-contained IR (not thermal) night sight imagers used a CV148 imager tube, yes, powered by a compact Zamboni pile in the 5 - 7kV range. The tubes are interesting in themselves as internal parts had to be swung and latched into position by a magnet, after sealing the tube, to prevent contamination of thephoto-cathodePhosphor screen during formation of the photo-cathode...http://www.r-type.org/addtext/add074.htmThe highest voltage Zamboni (probably, there's some debate) piles I have seen and are still in operation are those in the Oxford University bell demonstration, that has been running more or less continuously since 1840...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_Electric_BellI'm sure higher voltage piles were constructed in the 19th century though.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 10:13:13 am
content: How come no one built a really big one? You would think some physics department would have a impractically large one that requires ladders to operateIs there some instability that occurs after a few kV? Or other problemsIts like... really easy to build as far as physics experiments go.or made a wall of them connected in series. I am sure they would have been interested in getting really high DC voltage from batteries. Why not. And like recycling silver is easy, its not a very wasteful experiment if you have a minimum of resources.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 10:21:45 am
content: I'm sure there must have been bigger ones. Output current was very low though. At some point, electrical leakage of the large, increasingly bulky assembly might have overcome the available current. Just a guess.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 10:31:29 am
content: Here's a reference to a 5ft long one...http://www.amasci.com/emotor/duluc.html

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 10:41:28 am
content: it could also be compression problems maybe. You would need to lap the foils and papers to make it come together good, probobly crush it in a good press before use, and use electrostatic clamps to handle the papers as not to disturb them.You can increase flatness with the carpenters trick, that is to wet the wood before sanding to raise the grain. BUt with paper.I wonder what the actual determined problems areimagine a electrostatic holder paper disk lapping machine. Or I guess a vacuum 'chuck'.project fat stack