Can electricity conduct through a fine spray of water?

Jun 28, 2023 Last reply: 3 years ago 106 Replies

Water by itself is not that conductive. It is impurities in it that make it conductive. Ultra-pure water has a resistance of up to 18 megohm per cm. They won't be using that, but apparently use de-ionised water, which is fairly free from impurities and thus not particularly conductive.

It's likely that the HV insulators have been sprayed with dielectric silicon grease precisely to prevent the formation of continuous electrolyte films on the exposed surfaces.

What is typically used is G635 dielectric grease, originally from GE, but now widely available, the patents long since expired. The same stuff is sold for a very high price in the healthcare market.

When G635 first came out in the 1970s, I got a sample tube. Still have it, but much reduced. It worked wonders on sparkplug insulators, and distributor caps and rotors - hard starting in damp weather became a thing of the past. Also good for flooding stranded wire before crimping a terminal on, to prevent creepage of salt water into the terminal.

Joe Gwinn

Yes, but the water is insulated.

(That's why my 8th grade electrical shop teacher said why birds on powerlines don't get electrocuted.)

They are shaped like umbrellas so that they stay partly dry when it rains.

How does that happen? Strong magnetic field? Touching two cables?

If you watch the video, you will see that is not the case.

Nope

Two terminals.

Parent on one cable feeding chicks on another

Cool, just wondering since I was spraying mist on a parrot and he was rather close to a light socket.

Squirrels occasionally span an insulator and take out local power.

Our parrot Quincy loves to be sprayed too. There's no hazard from a nearby outlet.

San Francisco, after very much debate, has just declared the parrot to be The Official City Animal. We have giant, noisy, obnoxious flocks of wild parrots here. There's a nice movie about that.

The difference should be audible. Transformers hum and corona hisses.

My 150kV x 0.047uF Capacitor discharges quickly on a damp foggy morning.

How do you make 150 KV? Sounds like fun.

My idea was to get a lot of caps and tape them in series, to a PVC pipe.

Charge the top one, then the next one, and so on.

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