Kapton Tape Supercapacitor?

[@BreakingTaps]

I realized my explanation of how these work was vague and poorly worded, sorry! Graphene-based supercaps are a form of electrostatic double-layer capacitors (EDLCs). Charge is stored at the interface between the electrode and electrolyte via electrostatic attraction when charged. Due to the small charge separation EDLCs can charge and discharge very quickly, and the extreme surface area of graphene foam gives a large interface with the electrolyte to improve overall capacitance. That's why the "perimeter" of interdigitated electrodes is important, because more exposed perimeter == more interface opposing the other electrode to accumulate charge.

[@donaldviszneki8251]

What goes into selection of optimal electrolyte? What gives kapton tape this property of UV -> graphene? Could you estimate your capacitance economy? Like capacitance per area, volume, dollar, time, etc?

[@ScottGrammer]

Is this why you use an acid for the electrolyte rather than say an oil like in electrolytic caps? Because the electrolyte must be somewhat conductive?

[@TheVideoGuardian]

One other point on you're value measurements... It is not uncommon for capacitors to be manufactured under "tolerance" of 20% or more, so the meter might not be as inaccurate as it looks.

[@jhoughjr1]

@@donaldviszneki8251 well the tape is plastic made from hydrocarbons. Laser burns it down to carbon.

[@sebastianstewart6894]

Electrostatic? So it's charged by thunderstorms?

[@matthewperlman3356]

Your capacitance meter is likely more accurate than you realize; most commercial capacitors have a fairly wide tolerance from their stated value. Manufacturers data sheets should list the tolerance for each type the produce.

[@PhattyMo]

And the tolerance rating is often kind of 'skewed'. Something like +20/-10% of the nominal value is common.

[@cobiebeef]

I was hoping someone would mention this

[@donaldviszneki8251]

Looked for this comment to upvote

[@ScottGrammer]

Agreed. One of the caps he tested looked like it was rather old (the 5uF unit). First, if it actually was rated 5uF, it really is old, because anything made after say, 1975 would likely have been a 4.7uF, not a 5uF unit. Anyway, old electrolytic caps tend to become leaky, and leaky caps often read high on capacitance checkers, even though their true capacitance is falling.

[@blubbspinat9363]

+20/-10% is actually a tight tolerance. I have also seen +50/-20% tolerance in datasheets for electrollytics

[@StuffMadeHere]

Awesome project and quantum leap in production quality. Wow. I wish I had the skill / patience to actually setup shots 😬

[@Gwallacec2]

He's the combination of you and Applied Science. Glad Ben shouted him out!

[@DIYBiotech]

Stuff Made Here and Applied Science shoutouts?? Your channel is so underrated!

[@fnytnqsladcgqlefzcqxlzlcgj9220]

@@Gwallacec2 btw a quantum leap is extremely small. I mean I guess from the perspective of virtual particles it's extremely large, but a quantum leap is like between electron bands Then again scale becomes a very strange thing to consider eventually so I'll stop there.

[@SarmonOflynn]

To be fair - wives are pretty wiley subjects. Difficult to capture on camera in their natural environment.

[@arfyness]

Just please don't you also start talking off to one side without anyone else there. It's really distracting because it's so very forced.

[@IM2awsme]

It would be amazing to see KZbinrs start a license free movement, I was just watching one guy create spider silk using genetically modified yeast and released the gene sequences he developed under an MIT license. Absolutely amazing, his next step was to actually have the yeast absorb graphine and/or carbon nanotubes to bond them in the silk to make it stronger.

[@BreakingTaps]

I agree! It's pretty amazing what some of the minds on YT are capable of :) IIRC that was Thought Emporium.... he does some really fantastic work. One of my goals is to help spread knowledge of these interesting papers that are just buried in archives. Would be neat to see what we could accomplish as a group on YT sharing and developing different techniques that would normally end up in a paper or patent.. There are other interesting developments too, like Joe Barnard (BPS.space) working on launching suborbital rockets, etc. I'm happy to see YT being more than _just_ entertainment.

[@pauls5745]

there is a lot of exciting research done by private individuals. you don't have to be a mega corp to invent new tech

[@MartijnDeibel]

Yes, let’s start! Open source and iterative

[@ElementalMaker]

Man I am binging on your channel. This is some seriously awesome stuff!

[@BreakingTaps]

Thanks! Remarkably, I've somehow never stumbled on your channel, starting to queue up videos now myself! :)

[@templebrown7179]

@@BreakingTaps I enjoy both of your channels

[@CPT_IDOL]

Your point about reaching a level of technology in a society where we can do pretty serious testing and innovation in our garages with off-the-shelf components is spot on… This is the future I ordered! Liked and subscribed! 😎👍🏼

[@danielmahon1589]

every school need to have machine shops and maker spaces and every community needs to have at least one guild hall of sorts where crafts men and women can ply there craft and find young apprentices to share there knowledge with.

[@tanner1985]

absolutely, man, absolutely, i was thinking the same right now.

[@edgeeffect]

Really good presentation on this... you talk so naturally with no hint of "I'm reading a script" and no "uuum" or "aah" either. Nice smooth editing too.

[@icandreamstream]

Welp, this is one of those treats of KZbin: An easy insta-subscribe with a new underappreciated channel. I look forward to watching your channel eclipse 100k subscribers in the next 6 months.

[@jackburnell3209]

This capacitor seems like it could be useful as the flexure part of a homemade MEMS scale strain gauge, pressure or temperature sensor. Guys like me who are only hobbyists can't afford off the shelf devices just for the hell of it so making them is the only way to go. Lol

[@ikbendusan]

the second camera makes it seem like i'm watching a testimonial; it feels more personal if you talk to the camera you're looking at

[@BreakingTaps]

Cheers for the feedback! I've heard similar from a few other folks... will try to tone it down in future videos! :)

[@siggyincr7447]

I've seen this editing style on quite a few channels lately. I'm guessing there is some popular videography instructional video out there that was promoting it.

[@woulg]

@@BreakingTaps second camera is a nice touch, you could always just turn towards it, would be nice if you wanna add some extra info or something, like an aside in theatre....or malcolm in the middle haha

[@naotamf1588]

or the tangent cam, for when you go to explain something that is a bit off topic or complementary, but please do keep looking at us. tv show style makes me want to switch channels...

[@iliya-malecki]

imagine Ben from Applied Science, Stuff Made Here and Breaking Taps combine one day into one superhuman being, and make the world a perfect place

[@gus473]

The other individual would be Todd O. from Project Farm channel -- excellent, realistic testing of stuff you use or need every day....!

[@JinKee]

They should collab with carykh and build a robot

[@jskratnyarlathotep8411]

and the thought emporium

[@AmaroqStarwind]

Also; - Steve Mould - Mark Rober - Veritasium - The Action Lab - Cody's Lab - Project Farm - NileRed - Kyle Hill - KYLE.ENGINEERS - Engineering Explained - Tom Stanton - James Bruton - Etc

[@necronomicon1472]

The reason for the high values could also be leakage current. Especially on cheap meters, leaky caps can lead to much higher readings than the actual capacitance.

[@Gameboygenius]

Cane here to say this.

[@odudex]

Great research and presentation! The applications for this technique are huge! I'm an electronics engineer. And I think there's a possible fault on the capacitance metering. Multimeters presume you are measuring a capacitor, but electrodes in a acid medium will make a resistor(or RCL equivalent circuit), also may be electro-chemical reactions going on. There is no insulation on your device and electrons are flowing between terminals. It will probably self discharge almost instantly. To measure a capacitor precisely you first need to charge it, disconnect from source, than connect it to a load. Integrate the power it produced and you will have the energy it is able to store.

[@BreakingTaps]

Ah interesting, does that apply when using a dedicated "capacitance meter"? I had assumed/hoped it had internal circuitry to power the cap to some degree and test it's leakage or something? This is the device I have: www.newark.com/general-tools/cap1500/capacitance-meter-digital-200pf/dp/59P4162 I did find that it self-discharged very quickly just sitting on the bench, and made even worse when poking it with a multimeter :) I'll see about setting up some kind of circuit as you suggest to test it. Thanks for the help! Electronics is definitely not my forte, very much a newbie still :)

[@odudex]

@@BreakingTaps Hard to tell what process it uses to measure. But I think you don't have a capacitor(yet). You need an insulating medium between electrodes. For example electrolytic capacitors use aluminum oxide. In a capacitor electrons can't flow between terminals, there should be an insulation, where an electric field will be created to store enery.

[@BreakingTaps]

@Eduardo Schoenknecht So big grain of salt due to my general ignorance, but my understanding from the literature is that these types of supercaps operate a bit differently. When charged, a helmholtz double layer is formed symmetrically on the electrodes using the ions in the electrolyte (graphene + | - electrolyte + | - graphene), so there isn't actually a dielectric in play here. Just ions associating / disassociating with the graphene at the interface between liquid and solid. In theory, based on my reading, but as I said I could have that incorrect :)

[@odudex]

@@BreakingTaps you are right. And I don't have knowledge on super capacitors chemistry. But I think a special electrolyte is needed, regular diluted sulfuric acid will just conduct electricity.

[@BreakingTaps]

Roger, thanks for the help! Will do some more reading on my end. I'm itching to see if I can scale this thing up, so might be able to make a more robust v2 at the same time :)

[@2roti]

you should be trying to light at least a led, the experiment will bring " light " in this clip and make more visual for all on the channel ;)

[@victortitov1740]

yep, capacitance meters can show a completely irrelevant reading if you just connect a slightly weird resistor-like thing to it... because from the video, i remained unconvinced that the device can actually store some energy.

[@randfee]

@@victortitov1740 it works... my group works on this and other things in the lab (a little fancier, granted, but the principle is the same). That being said, I would have cycled it with a decent sourcemeter, then again, me, laser physicist lab, him, at home ... so.

[@thijslenssen192]

@@randfee I am currently working on an electrostatic adhesion gripper. They require an input voltage between 1-6kV, so we need materials with high dielectric strength. At the moment we are ordering flexible PCBs with the interdigitated pattern and the space between the electrodes is limited by the dielectric strength of the adhesive. Would you be able to produce them with this method and what material would you use to cover the electrodes?

[@pioneer1943]

Just your regular off the shelf 5W LASER!!! Yeah I can just walk into a supermarket to get one lol. The video is stellar, good job!

[@AlexanderTzalumen]

If styropyro has taught me anything, you can probably find one on ebay, improperly listed with a lower power rating.

[@noobulon4334]

They're available as parts for laser cutters

[@you2709]

Just waiting for the youtube algorithm to bless this channel. Great work as usual, I'm using your metallic microlattice video for one of my projects right now.

[@BreakingTaps]

Oh awesome, lemme know how it goes (or if you run into issues)! :)

[@you2709]

@@BreakingTaps Played around with this graphene concept last weekend, turns out it works really great with the 10um co2 lasers, which is mighty convenient. Also turned much more black (vantablack?) than yours. Anyways, do you have a discord server or something? It would be neat to hang around, as I and a few friends are all doing similar stuff as you

[@BreakingTaps]

@Wid Lay Awesome, glad to hear it! The first LIG papers were done on CO2 iirc, and there are some neat followup papers where they perform multiple passes to turn amorphous carbon into LIG (which isn't possible with shorter wavelengths like mine). Was used to make supercaps on coconuts and potatos as demonstrations :) I wonder if that's why yours was blacker? The literature shows that LIG is a big mess of graphene + amorphous carbon + fullerenes + tubes, so I wonder if the CO2 does a better job of converting some of the non-graphene into graphene? Dunno, but interesting result! No discord at the moment, but I was just thinking it'd be fun to have a place to gather folks working on similar stuff. Lemme set one up and I'll give you a ping!

[@BreakingTaps]

@@you2709 Made a discord! discord.gg/R45uCXcEv4 feel free to invite whomever :)

[@emmettturner9452]

The bed heaters on my 3D printers typically have kapton covering them. They also suffer from being inconsistent and take a long time to come up to temperature with DC power (less so with the AC bed heaters), with less heat near the outer edges. If the kapton covering them were the actual heat source then I imagine it would perform MUCH better. :)

[@anttiandreimann8456]

I immediately thought about the same thing. Aluminum is often used to spread the heat from the wires of a heater. Lot of the heat is lost to the backside of the plate. So what if you had a glass bed, completely covered with kapton tape and a standard PEI sticker on top of that. Glass is more rigid than aluminium, has lower density, is a fairly poor conductor of heat and even cheap glass sheets are usually flatter than aluminum. So one can have a lighter, more rigid and flatter bed, reduce losses from the backside and get a more uniform heating. Manufacturing this should be very easy too. Just apply kapton tape to the glass, treat it with a laser, run two pieces of copper foil on the sides for power, then apply PEI sticker on top. Or, perhaps a magnetic sticker to enable the use of removable flex sheets.

[@AlexanderTzalumen]

@@anttiandreimann8456 you'd also have to figure out where to shove the sensor to feed data back to the controller, and hope your PID tuning algorithm works properly. That said, insulation layer, kapton, electrodes and thermistor, then print bed should work really well and keep the heat directed upwards.

[@dm5rkt]

@@anttiandreimann8456 You could make the bed heater using the printer itself. Just mount the laser to the print head and run it uniformly over the kapton.

[@markopesevski]

@@AlexanderTzalumen to try it out crudely there's a simpler solution, since the resistance of the "heating mat" shouldn't vary too much with the temperature swings (at max up to ~100°C of swing from ambient, for general 3D printing with "normal" materials) you could even characterize it measuring the temperature with a thermocouple vs PWM percentage of current, and then control it just by using a look up table and not even need a PID controller, as a certain amount of PWM controlled current should provide the same temperature consistently. Although thermal imaging would be necessary to ensure the current is not traveling in just a straight line or area of the mat (think skin-effect) as opposed to through the whole mat, because PWM-ing creates a lot of high frequency harmonics which may (or may not) induce this effect. Might give this a try one day if I get myself a laser, hope someone beats me to it because it sounds promising IMHO

[@AlexanderTzalumen]

@@markopesevski perhaps, but the marlin firmware used in the majority of hobbiest and consumer 3d printers all use PID controllers for their heating elements, partially for the initial temperature ramp, and also for maintaining temp stability against the various sources of heat loss (radiant losses, ambient air currents, part cooling fans, moving build plate, etc). For a heated build plate, inconsistant temperature can lead to 1st layer delamination, which will cause the print to shift, warp, or fully detach.

[@TacDyne]

I keep seeing all these hype videos about super tech this and super magic that, but until it can directly improve my life it's nothing more than vaporware.

[@jhoughjr1]

pretty sure this is not a supercap from the values ive seen.

[@user-hk3ej4hk7m]

A note on the capacitance meter: electrolytic caps tend to have a very generous tolerance range, skewed up, since for the most part they're used with rectifying circuits for their relatively high capacity. There's a possibility for the real capacitance value to be closer to the meter readings than to the value on the label.

[@JBantha]

"There's only so much two dimensional space..." In a room in the middle of a city, someone working on coastline lengths sighs in the dark.

[@theeviljames]

Just found your channel today: love the videos, the level of detail, and pace. I'd been searching an Applied Science like channel and your's is a great addition to my subs. Thanks :)

[@salopy0]

Material science + Manufacturing + home shop... Love it.

[@papanyanz]

capacitance reading may be off in this case due to high leakage resistances, you need some type of rlc meter to determine simultaneously Parallel, series resistances AND capacitance. Parallel Resistance is responsible for leakage currents -determines self discharge speed actually, while series resistance is like a series connected resistor - limits the current and has other detrimental effects. But anyways with some clever experimentation I think you can figure out all of them. nice job.

[@astakimi]

This channel is one of my favorites actually, really awesome content. And that laser induced graphene are so versatile that a lot of technological applications can be made with that. Thanks to show us that amazing technique.

[@nothingnoone8752]

Never seen this guy before, but I started watching and couldn't stop because it was such a good video. Subbed.

[@apaskiewicz]

Holy crap! Man, thank you so much for making this. I have been wanting to get into working with graphene and you inspired me. Thanks!

[@jackburnell3209]

That does it. I'm building my Pi/Arduino laser CNC. I just found this post and it seems like it exactly matches my interests. Manufacturing, electronics, programming and materials.

[@w0ttheh3ll]

This video is awesome, thanks for adding the comment with the actual "how it works" explanation!

[@pablobujin]

And man, I loved your explanation style. Please keep going.

[@friskydingo5370]

Extremely creative process 👍

[@TheUallis]

Really cool! Some of my collaborators used LIG. We far preferred to use printed graphene produced by liquid exfoliation. :D

[@yamiomo7392]

Good stuff dude, you don't try to spice up your videos, which I appreciate. just straight forward trial and error goodness.

[@OwnerOfOwn]

Thank you for this channel. Truly. Also face reveal gang

[@BreakingTaps]

Thanks! And yeah... figured it was about time I stop being lazy and film some talking head stuff :)

[@mr.notorious2465]

The heater peaked my interests. Living up north and especially with the weather getting more extreme, the snow and freezing rain can really be a problem for us. You've given me some ideas on how to implement a cheap diy heating system for driveways and sidewalks etc. I'd be interested in seeing you expand on the low voltage high temp heater in the use cases I've mentioned above but none the less great video!

[@BreakingTaps]

There has been a _ton_ of interestin that aspect, especially since it was more a footnote than anything. I think I'll probably do a followup video to see how it works in practice, would be interesting to see if there are limits on size, surface area, voltage/current, etc. Biggest problem is making good electrical contact but I have a few ideas. Cheers! (I'm also up in the frozen north so feel ya there :) )

[@mr.notorious2465]

@@BreakingTaps I will be looking forward to it! Keep warm and stay safe!!

[@anystrap404]

Incredibly impressive project! Now I want to go order a laser from my printer and make use of the big roll of Kapton I've got. =] Great quality of shots, editing, and sound too. You put out a high quality video sir!

[@MakeTeachRepeat]

So great to see the recognition starting to happen for this channel - I keep trying to pump the views a little (I just love rewatching lasers blow polyimide into carbon foam). I'm trying a repeat on this but using a second copper deposit layer for charge collector.

[@archangelchronicles6604]

Amazing heater, really want to build one.

[@MemoonSajid]

Perfect video Thanks a lot Your first video I watched as a random suggestion by KZbin but didn't skip a minute and am subscribing to your channel.

[@woulg]

I wanna go to the kind of party where people demonstrate shit like this to each other. Party tricks where I'm from are usually something like someone opening a beer bottle with their eyebrow.

[@d3734]

I know the feeling, I need more productivity and prosperity-minded friends.

[@grahamgrecian1332]

I actually have a friendly competition where my friends and I compete to create the coolest mechanical thing based on a theme. At the end of every other month we get together and show it off. You should join us! 😂

[@woulg]

@@grahamgrecian1332 oh wow, that's sick. How do you organize this?

[@grahamgrecian1332]

@@woulg it's just a few other guys in the honor hall at my college. You should start one too! It's a lot of fun

[@woulg]

@@grahamgrecian1332 nice! Will do, thanks

[@VectorNodes]

Holy crap I'm 100% trying this after work

[@turboprint3d]

I wanna try making long capacitors and rolling them up in a case like an electrolytic capacitor is normally made in . cool idea great vid.

[@zsheets7483]

That last bit got me thinking about the possibility of a kepton-graphene based home metalworking forge.

[@TheSam1902]

It's cool to see kepton turn to graphene when hit with a laser ! Great footage :D

[@ThinklikeTesla]

One important test for your capacitance meter -- put a resistor across it, no capacitance. Does it still try to produce a reading? If so, you need to be cautious about taking the measurements too seriously. Try also measuring DC resistance of the assembled graphene devices. WIth capacitance, the reading will start low and climb, but see if it tops out at some level or rises to effectively infinity (== good capacitor!)

[@Remowylliams]

Great detail on this, I found it interesting you used sulfuric acid. For some reason I thought most DIY super caps were using a solution of potassium hydroxide. Still I never knew Kapton tape did that with a laser. Great info. thanks!

[@BreakingTaps]

Big grain of salt since I'm not an expert, but I believe you can construct alkaline supercaps as well with KOH, NaOH, etc. They just have to be electrostatic double-layer capacitors like this graphene form, but otherwise it doesn't matter if the electrolyte is acidic or basic since you get the same double-layer phenomenon either way. I have seen some papers that show different behaviors depending on the electrolyte used, because the different ion sizes can affect accumulated charge, how quickly they charge/discharge, how it interacts with the electrode material, etc. But yeah, far from an expert so don't trust anything I just said 😀

[@jhoughjr1]

@@BreakingTaps that is one thing about electrolytic supercaps, the electrolyte can store some energy and move charges via chemical processes in addition to the plate storage.

[@designersmind3140]

This is amazing. I can't believe I can make super capacitors just using my diode laser modded 3D printer and a roll of kapton tape. I know what I'm doing this week

[@mystic22222]

From an electronics engineer: believe your meter, *not* the markings on an electrolytic cap. Electrolytics are literally formed by leakage current as long as voltage is applied. In storage, the oxide layer dissolves, causing the capacitance and leakage to rise and the voltage tolerance to fall If a device is left uncharged for more than a few years, it will often blow up from leakage induced heat when finally powered up again. The actual capacitance can easily be several time more than the markings but the voltage tolerance is a small percentage of design. Old caps can be reformed if put on a bench power supply for about a week with the current limited to a few milliamps and the voltage set to nominal (what the markings say). Meters are calibrated at the factory and even cheap ones drift very little. All my handheld Flukes stayed within 1% more than 10 years old, when I checked them against components measured on Lockheeds scientific instruments.

[@sonkira]

Thank you for what you're doing. You are one of the reason why I like KZbin

[@EricDalgetty]

Aw man these just keep getting better! Your production quality really shows, I can't imagine how much time must go into each of these shots. Keep up the great work! (Not to mention the great science you keep showcasing, I really like this series where you recreate scientific paper results)

[@BreakingTaps]

Thanks, really appreciate it!

[@DS-vu5yo]

It would be very interesting to see the conductivity of the grapheme. Essentially you measure with a multimeter a square sample of the material with the entire edge of the two measurements points as electrodes. Or, alternatively, you measure both voltage and current of the heater version and use ohms law, then divide by the length to width ratio. This is quite important for any design optimization.

[@ethanmye-rs]

Electrolytic capacitors are usually +80%, -20% in tolerance.

[@BreakingTaps]

Woah, that's wild. I had no idea they had such loose tolerances

[@ikbendusan]

​@@BreakingTaps they don't; the vast majority (like 90% of them) have a tolerance of ± 20%

[@martin2250]

Great project! I'd be interested to see the leakage current and how long the capacitors will hold voltage with no external connections. Leakage current could also influence the readings from your multimeter, so this is something to watch out for.

[@BreakingTaps]

Forgive the newbie question: I should be able to test this with just an oscilloscope right? Charge up, measure the discharge for a given period of time and then work out the resistance / leakage current from that?

[@jg374]

A crude but portable way to check capacitor condition is to put a multimeter across the terminals and see what the resistance stabilises to. Ideally it should be infinite, but you know a motor start capacitor has definitely failed when it has a resistance under a few hundred ohms :). My understanding of the way most multimeters measure capacitance is they time how long it takes for the capacitance to reach a certain voltage from 0v with a known constant current, so any leakage resistance decreases the amount of current charging the capacitor and makes it appear larger in value than it actually is. I have also used an LC meter that seems to use some form of oscillation to measure capacitance and this seems a bit less sensitive, but can still do weird things with high leakage currents.

[@basbekjenl]

Bruh, this was an awesome explanation, I got most of what was explained. So facinating you made this with advanced homemade tools. I learned something today just as I got bored real happy about that.

[@proskub5039]

Re: the validation of the capacitance meter: Regular electrolytic caps often have very high positive tolerances, like for instance 10uF -10% + 50%. The manufacturing process of these can be a bit imprecise, and the tolerances are offset to ensure that you will more or less always get at least the nameplate capacitance. As electrolytics are typically used for filtering/energy storage, getting more capacitance that you expected is pretty much never a bad thing.

[@Monsieurbricole]

This is the content that I was looking for. Keep it up.

[@ToBeeOrNotToBeHoney]

The part about creating a low voltage heater is rather interesting to me. I would love to see more details on this.

[@ConnorWeller]

I'm so glad I found your channel!!!!

[@Buongona]

those interdigit things are fascinating!

[@varickveit2245]

dude. my dude. keep it up. Watched a couple of your vids now, and I don't have a good reason to NOT subscribe. You do good work.

[@davidhawley1132]

I wonder if the graphene heater would work in a bimetallic-like bend actuator.

[@etmax1]

There's no reason why it shouldn't

[@alex-dn9to]

thats a great design i liked to see the design transform and it was a good product!

[@jeremycrochtiere6317]

Awesome Video, Keep up the Great work, love the videos, educational, and informative. Thanks for feeding the publics Intellectual curiosities.

[@8182junebug]

Good production quality on this one, and very interesting content! I like the background.

[@BreakingTaps]

Thanks! I was hoping to do some chalkboard demos.. but it's not quite smooth enough yet, need to apply a few more layers and keep sanding 🙃

[@BooooClips]

You don’t need the second camera for KZbin, it makes the viewer feel like their not there with you

[@user-um9sl1kj6u]

There are many different types of graphene. It’s just that’s good for capacitors and heaters on planes. It’s essentially for wings and de-icing

[@mystamo]

That heater bit was amazing! Could you make a video with a bit more detail on that.. I didn't quite understand how the connections were made across the Kapton tape after it was lasered and converted.

[@BreakingTaps]

I'll see what I can do! Have had some other folks request more info about the heater as well. The connections were just strips of copper tape pressed against the edge of the graphene, held in place with clamps. That's the big downfall with this technique, making electrical contact to the graphene is hard (it doesn't solder well). Most research papers use conductive epoxy, and I just pressed copper directly against it :)

[@ricardocasson1349]

I don't know if someone already mentioned this, but you can validate the capacitance assembling an LC oscillator using an inductor with known inductance and measuring the resulting frequency

[@dl5244]

Since most super capacitor designs are for energy storage with a DC voltage, it would be better to measure the capacitance under said operating DC bias. Measure the step response time of a discharge under constant resistance (eg. time the discharge from 3.0V down to 0.3V with 1000 Ohms across it).

[@lumotroph]

Fantastic. Please keep making these!

[@theSquashSH]

amazing production quality and science!

[@squelchstuff]

Why have I been ignoring your recommended videos for so long? Time I guess, but laser assisted deposition just happened to come onto my radar, and wow I feel cheated by my own ignorance now. You have a new sub, and I'm very glad to see some familiar faces in the comments too.

[@fickgooglefickthem6884]

The feeling when You've found a gem of a channel (!)

[@JustinDaze]

This is so cool. Great work

[@Jcewazhere]

A kapton heater based electric countertop skillet sounds awesome. My current one has a very obvious hot ring where the wire heating element is. Or a kapton toaster. I assume it's near 100% efficient at turning the electricity into heat right?

[@alexkart9239]

Now we can put the mask on it and deposit copper on some regions to get a good conductors where we need it. Feels like a good method for making thin and flexible electronics.

[@TCBYEAHCUZ]

I'm sure space agencies and corporations would love to start using that neat heating method for their orbital satelites and probes!

[@radarmusen]

Marco Reps was talking about this video. This is very interesting, it's really make the gear turn in the head thinking about what else it can be used for. :-)

[@insightfool]

This is awesome! Can't believe I didn't know about this before.

[@rossk7927]

That heater at the end... if i had the project for it, I'd want to make a PCB reflow bed out of it. I'd love to see some power efficiency numbers just out of curiosity too.

[@chickenman297]

Electrolytic caps are usually +/- 20% tolerance so your measured values are probably fairly accurate. Cool project though. Be interesting to recreate this in my home shop though I need more equipment lol.

[@feyntmistral1110]

Two things I'm interested in from this video: 1. Can you make a flexible version of this kapton tape capacitor with Farad levels of storage? Thinking about having a quick charging battery that you could work into a wearable, this seems ideal, even if the "battery" wouldn't last more than an hour (in typical circumstances, who isn't able to get to a wall outlet or at least install a battery inside of an hour?). Home printing a battery I could wrap around my wrist or across my back for example with a reasonable enclosure for durability would be great. 2. The "heater" at the end seems like it would make for a pretty great handwarmer system at super low Voltages, because 285C is a little much for skin, but maintaining a consistent 20-30C across your hand in the winter would be very ideal.

[@user-wq7hx1vu9i]

wow! thank you, that may become a method to manufacture a heated bed for my printer! not entirely sure yet, but that seems less complicated than copper-based methods. Also, uniform heat distribution is a great benefit, maybe on one of the beds I'll cover it all. Overall it seems almost too good to be true, like, tape over the glass and laser it? so simple, for a uniform 400 C heater? maybe even hotter with some shamanism around adhesives

[@gordonlawrence1448]

Not sure if it's available in the USA but Kapton tape can be got as wide as 100mm which is roughly 4 inches. The other thing that may be of interest is that with regard to the acid, pH is not always a good indicator of suitability to be an electrolyte. EG Boric acid is used commercially in a lot of capacitors which is nothing like as aggressive as sulphuric, and is less toxic. Might be worth a try as it's relatively cheap. One other point is that capacitance meters due to implementing probably the cheapest nastiest way of measuring are almost never accurate (except by accident). Unless you get a Rhode and Schwartz but don't expect change out of 50k for a top of the line model. Electrolytic capacitors are also all over the place dependant on manufacturing tolerance, age and how long since it was last formed. Even ceramic capacitors have issues with aging reducing capacitance (it's a ferroelectric effect reversed by heating). The only ones that are not a right pain in the grunock are either waxed paper (which can still explode in a shower of confetti) or polystyrene that crack if exposed to too much light. If you want a cheap accurate way of measuring capacitance then a wheatstone bridge driven from an accurate sine source into a proper differential amplifier (INA117 is not good enough frequency wise but it's good enough in all other specs). Basically a capacitor has a fixed impedance at a fixed frequency that can be measured.

[@182mdavi]

Laser printing capacitors. Dude well done. Thanks for sharing your work

[@simonstergaard]

Fantastic... Now i can just "print" my heating element for my flow chemistry microreactors...this just made my life more that 100% better... always a pain to find a right size film-heating element.

[@BreakingTaps]

That sounds interesting! Got a link to more information? Fair warning if you attempt to make one of these heaters, getting a good electrical contact is a little tricky since the graphene can be fragile. I used copper tape and mechanical clamping, but something like conductive epoxy would probably be a lot more reliable. Goodluck!

[@khatharrmalkavian3306]

I like the way that "graphene" has become a synonym for any and all carbon in the universe as researchers fight for funding after decades of failing to deliver.

[@jasonzoldos8243]

The heater would be very helpful for repair of integrated circuits like replacement of the pga sockets on motherboards

[@nonsquid]

If you could make small enough laser lines, then you could make safety eye glass heaters that would defrost safety glasses (or any glasses, goggles) just like car window defrosters.

[@sashimanu]

the glasses aren't usually made of Kapton, so this may require an inert atosphere when etching. Also some protection against the elements is needed.

[@anonymity66]

You did a great job on the video! Well put together and informative.

[@WileHeCoyote]

Love it!! Let's apply this to a wide format printer and start making some big o'l jelly rolls!

[@cannonroberts5129]

You are a blast to watch and listen to.

[@terranovarain6570]

Really cool and potentially a great way to heat a space suit

[@alexm66]

You're my hero. Keep on the good work.

[@GMCLabs]

The meter is probably pretty accurate. Caps can have tolerances of +80% to -20%.

[@mikefromspace]

Kapton is extremely expensive, especially if you're doing a large project where you'll notice it. There are other cheap methods of growing graphene. Positive ions from a superconductive source can form graphene quickly in a vacuum chamber at 10% atmosphere 1800-1900f. There's probably a few ways to create that effect. One is using a pair of tesla coils close to one-another next to the outside of the chamber, firing 2mV and using the right grow medium as co2 gas is slowly vented in.

[@jakenkid]

Just wanted to offer up a big *Thank You!* For your hard work and effort, and for your desire to propagate knowledge which I feel is a noble cause, and can only make the world a better place! If only more people had that same desire, or even the desire to learn, frankly. It seems nobody wants to learn, they just want to *know* if that makes sense.

[@jonathanseagraves8140]

I understand that this is a little late, but maybe this would interest someone. If you are aware of the inkjet transparency film; it has a emulsion layer coated on one side of an acetate sheet. That layer can be lifted off the acetate if you soak it in a lye solution. IF one were able to somehow transfer that very fragile emulsion onto the lasered polyamide it could be used as an electrolyte carrier. The emulsion may need to be neutralized of the basic lye solution, rinsed, and dried. It is very fragile when its unwashed and dried that may change when its not extremely basic. But it seems like it would have the properties needed since it is designed to be a carrier of water based ink solutions.

[@iFlyGood]

This caught my interest. I think you're on to something. What do you think would be the main benefits over other electrolyte carriers? Can you also explain why being a carrier for water based ink is related?

[@NorthernKitty]

If you can reliably control the temperature, using the tape as a heater would be a great wrap for lithium batteries in cold weather climates. Have a temperature sensor turn on the heating tape when conditions are too cold to charge the batteries in order to warm them. Cheap, thin and flexible solution.

[@kaine2416]

I could see the heater strips being used on a micro scale for things like TCXOs and such. They would make miniaturization of heated components easier by allowing smaller components to be heated at lower voltages with mere μAs. Now that's just speculation on my part, but I can see the possible uses being enormous.

[@superblast39]

Beautiful explanations brother!

[@brucewilliams6292]

This was very cool. I can't wait to see your flux capacitor ;) Happy New Year and thanks for the video.