Just rolled my own capacitor

[culturejam]

Some time ago, I made my own resistors. That was a pain in the ass and the results were somewhat unusable because of the super-low resistance ratings. But caps, on the other hand, turn out to be a bit easier and more useful to make.

My first try was this huge ugly thing that weighed in at 20n. But my second try is below. It's much smaller (2") and sports a whopping 1.8 nano-farads of metal-foil mojo. Talk about boutique!   

I'll post a tutorial when I've done a few more experiments, but basically I used aluminum foil and packing tape (and some standard 26g wire).

[mgwhit]

That is just ridiculously cool.

[Hangingmonkey]

Wow, never thought of building my own components.  looking forward to the tutorial

[icecycle66]

Holy crap. 

[alanp]

That is cool. I made a capacitor out of a plastic bucket, 600mL glass bottles, salt water, and oil, once, but nothing as flash as that!

[slimtriggers]

    That's really taking DIY to the next level! 

[jkokura]

You crazy son of a gun!

Do a true DIY Fuzz Face CJ, I dare you...

Jacob

[midwayfair]

You've found a new way to stick it to the man.

You should build a completely DIY'd circuit of some sort for Buy Nothing Day.

[nzCdog]

Thats cool CJ... I remember seeing a youtube video once, but the idea you could use particular dialectrics and aim for specific capacitances is cool beyond measure...  boutique indeed!

You've found a new way to stick it to the man.

You should build a completely DIY'd circuit of some sort for Buy Nothing Day.

lol! Great idea Jon... though mining your own metals might be tedious 

[culturejam]

Do a true DIY Fuzz Face CJ, I dare you...

I intend to do some kind of simple fuzz with some home-rolled caps. The resistors are just too hard to do. Well, they aren't hard, but to get even 1K of resistance, they would be massive (like too big for an enclosure).

Besides, everybody knows all the mojo is in the caps. So I'll focus on that.

[jkokura]

Do a true DIY Fuzz Face CJ, I dare you...

I intend to do some kind of simple fuzz with some home-rolled caps. The resistors are just too hard to do. Well, they aren't hard, but to get even 1K of resistance, they would be massive (like too big for an enclosure).

Besides, everybody knows all the mojo is in the caps. So I'll focus on that.

Who cares how big the enclosure is... in fact, I expect that to be DIY too! I'm anticipating you creating a steel forge in your back yard.

Jacob

[bigmufffuzzwizz]

 

[icecycle66]

I'd pay good money for a home rolled Bazz Fuss.

[culturejam]

Just rolled another one. This time I used smaller strips of foil but rolled it a LOT tighter, and I ended up wtih 3.5nF. Both surface area of the foils and the closeness of the two  foils affect total capacitance. So the goal is the biggest area and the closest together you can get them (without touching). Rolling tighter basically doubled the capacitance.

I'd pay good money for a home rolled Bazz Fuss.

That's actually the one I was thinking of since it has so few parts.  

[pickdropper]

So do you measure the tolerance as a percentage of capacitance or in thickness?