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Author: Subject: What is the maximum voltage batteries can handle?
GameBoy
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[*] posted on 11-8-2018 at 18:43
What is the maximum voltage batteries can handle?


There is nothing on internet. People are making some weird electrostatic and transformer devices to power up their high-voltage devices from light bulbs to particle accelerators, but I have never seen anybody using cells or batteries for the same. Closest to that is using capacitors. So is it possible for batteries to work while 1 MV passes through them? I mean potential difference is established only at the end of first and last battery, while each battery towards middle has also potential differences, but is getting lower as we get from end to middle. Is it true to say that this 1 MV passes through each battery when they are connected to load? Or does voltage become lower when load is connected? Voltage is properly measured only when nothing is connected? Is there some reason why batteries in series are not used for making high voltage? I doubt it's design problem. I doubt that it's difficult to put 1000000 cells in series between 999999 electrolyte layers. Just can't imagine hoe battery normally works.
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[*] posted on 11-8-2018 at 19:27


What kind of a coincidence. We have been trying to do this very thing. We had an old, old, man, very experienced and smart. We told him what we wanted. He made some nervous sounds, but agreed to make the job. He did OK until he got to 500,000th cell, and then he was unfortunately electrocuted.

We made a local search, and found a young guy, very eager to do work. Too eager, maybe. He was immediately electrocuted.

We were in a big pickle then. We had bad press, and no one wanted to make a job for us anymore. We made a grand search, high and low, for a suitable candidate. Finally we found someone, and we gave him special insulator suit and much money, and he did the work. He added about 499,999 more cells, then maybe there was some damage on his suit, and he too was electrocuted.

So now we have no one to put in the last cell. Do you want the job?

Seriously, though. You can't turn off batteries the same way that you can turn off a high voltage power supply. It would be needlessly unsafe.




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[*] posted on 11-8-2018 at 19:49


Are you joking? That is just hypothetical story, and not real? I doubt anyone would get electrocuted because unlike in analog current there is no ground. So you won't get electrocuted just by touching that +1 MV battery end, except if finger is in electrolyte and other end of battery. In batteries, dc current and similar we need to put finger between + and - to get hurt. And btw I would experiment with low current, only high voltage. I am more concerned about possible breakdown of electrolyte or some other material in battery. Like will some dangerous compound be formed or short circuit? If we use some common batteries that already exist. What is the first thing that would go off? Also condzctivity of air does not concern me because i would close whole battery in some glass.

I have already tried putting 15 kV through my finger from that piezoelectric switch in lighter, and I stayed alive and well. Although that works on ground principle like our home electricity, so is more dangerous.

[Edited on 12-8-2018 by GameBoy]
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[*] posted on 11-8-2018 at 20:05


You would not get electrocuted by a 1 MV battery's sole terminal, no. You'd get electrocuted by the arc coming to meet it from the other side due to the sheer electric field being generated, unless you'd put the electrodes... well, anywhere past a third of a meter away from each other, according to a very brief google search on the matter. Also, DC has a ground - and I daresay it's more closely regulated than AC on what things are grounded, given how DC circuits work.

Also, batteries are further unlike power supplies in that they do not care what 'current' you attempt to make them draw - only what 'resistance' you present them with. 1 MV through your body to the ground (or even to the battery's ground) is easily enough to stop your heart, as well as burn a few things in the process.

The reason multiple batteries aren't used in series as a power source is... well, actually, they are. It's not very economical, due to the (energy/materials/manufacture/maintenance/literally everything else) costs of using batteries as a long-term, large-scale source of power, but the idea has been tossed around by people looking to go off the grid or make use of excess grid energy during peak production times. The main trouble is that everything else is much more efficient in the long run, which is what most engineers tend to look for.

Stick to a power supply. They're cheaper, smaller, lighter, more versatile, and less hazardous.

[Edited on 8/12/2018 by elementcollector1]




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[*] posted on 11-8-2018 at 22:06


If you play with a small high voltage generator, you get a little tingle and say, "Ha ha! That tickles!"

Maybe 1 Joule maximum is safe, but painful for healthy human-sized person. 1 million "AAA" cells in series could deliver 1A easily. That would be about 1.5 million Joules in one second. Someone say, "Where is GameBoy?" and they say, "We only hear loud explosion, we know nothing."




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[*] posted on 12-8-2018 at 06:34


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_arc#History

Some early researchers used batteries with thousands of plates to generate high voltages.




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