Today we are experimenting with water and high-voltage electricity.
We are always told that you should never bring electricity near water.
But why? What would happen if you dipped electrical cables in a glass of water?
The purpose of this video is to find out.
For the first experiment I disassembled this very dangerous device that gets electricity from my mains.
And it divides it over these two wires.
If I let these two wires touch each other, you will see that the light is flickering behind me.
If they do not touch each other, the light is off.
But when the wires touch each other, the lights go back on.
Now for the first test I have filled this glass with distilled water.
Nothing should be in the distilled water. It should be pure and non-conductive.
This means that electricity could not flow through it.
Let’s see if that is really the case.
Here we go.
Nothing.
So you can see that both wires are completely submerged
And nothing happens to the light. It does not even flicker.
But we will let the wires touch each other under water and see what happens next.
Wow, it made a little noise.
And I saw a bit of luminous electricity and the light behind me went on.
That is actually pretty cool.
And I can see small bubbles coming off the wires.
It makes me wonder if that might be hydrogen bubbles.
Maybe we have a mini-electrolysis generator here.
An update: we have confirmed that distilled water is non-conductive.
We had absolutely no response.
So I filled my glass with tap water to see if there is a difference.
Electricity versus tap water: here we go.
Oh interesting, you should see that!
It looks like the light is going on a bit. It does not go all the way,
but there is certainly an electric current.
If I pull the wires further apart, it will be dimmed,
and if I bring them closer together, it becomes a bit lighter.
That is interesting.
Look, if I move the wires, the light will flicker a little.
And these wires do not even touch each other. They are just submerged in the water.
Apparently tap water is a little conductive.
Of course it does not run with full power, but the water certainly ensures a closed circuit.
Because these wires do not touch each other.
And if you let the wires touch each other, the light will of course light up completely.
That is amazing.
So it is clear that we do not get all the electricity through, but we do get something.
That is very interesting.
I think the concerns about electricity in combination with water come from the days when people are still portable
heating and that it fell into the bath or for example a hairdryer.
We must remember that bathing not only has water in it.
They also have soap and shampoo.
So for the next experiment we will try to add a little bath soap.
and we look at what that does.
I make a bathtub-martini
It is not dirty yet. That’ll come.
Okay, our wires are under tension,
here we go.
You can see that the light comes on a bit.
Oh yes, that light is a lot brighter.
The light does not burn at full strength but the wires do not touch each other.
Let’s say that about 50 to 75 percent of the electricity flows through, but that’s quite a lot.
That is enough to give you a touch when you are in the bath with a normal electrical device such as a hairdryer.
So yes, bath soap definitely increases the conduction of water.
Interesting.
So this was actually pretty cool. We saw exactly what electricity the house did in soapy water.
So I think we have to go one step higher to high tension.
Can you remember this? This is a big old converter for neon lights.
Here 12 000 volts of electricity comes out, but it is currently limited to 30 milliAmpere.
These are the kind of things that have big neon signboards that you see in the city with electricity.
Nowadays, if you ever go to a fast-food restaurant or any other company,
you will probably see such a neon sign.
They still get electricity from a neon converter, but with newer technologies
they can give the same amount of electricity while weighing much less.
Now I’m going to do a shout-out to my friend Jerem.
He is the one who gave me this neon sign but unfortunately enough it is broken
so we can not do much with it, except with the converter on the back.
To dismantle this converter, we have to remove it from the board
cut as far as possible,
and then strip the cable so that the narrow cable emerges inside.
Now the tension that we just used from our house was 120 volts.
These, however, do produce ten to twelve thousand volts.
Exponentially higher.
And that is why high voltage signs have such a thick layer of rubber.
So for the last experiment today, I want to demonstrate the power of high tension.
I have completely cleaned and dried this glass because we are going back to distilled water,
that is theoretically non-conductive.
So how would high stress work with distilled water?
We will notice it.
There are some important things that we need to know about high voltage.
Number 1: it is so powerful that it can flow through air.
In a normal electrical circuit, the wires must touch each other.
But not at high voltage.
High voltage can pass through the air and form its own electric bridge.
Which means that thin gloves like this will not protect you,
so even if you wear gloves, high tension can still flow through your body.
Happy 30 mA is not enough to stop your heart, in theory,
but we do not want to run that risk so when you are busy with high tension
it is a good idea to put one hand behind your back and work with the other.
We want to prevent electricity from flowing through our hearts.
High voltage electricity versus distilled water, let’s see what happens.
I will first dip the end of the wire in water,
and then the second then see what happens.
Ooh, you should see that!
The distilled water not only conducts electricity,
but the electricity actually jumps to the water before it makes contact.
When I let one wire come close to the other, you hear the buzzing.
And if I go a bit further
they are just tiny purple lightning bolts that shoot towards the water.
It is so cool!
If we also submerge the second one, it will disappear completely. I still feel it buzzing by the way.
Let’s take it slow.
Oh wow, did you see that the water was stuck to the wire?
That is bizarre.
That is very cool!
I did not expect that.
So this was something that I did not expect, but
As soon as I pull the wires out of the water, it appears that the water is attracted by the electricity.
At least 1.9 centimeters from the surface and then immediately falls into the glass again.
Look, I can do both of them at once.
That is awesome! It is as if I pull the surface upwards.
Wow, what happens when I bring them closer together?
So apparently the water is more conductive than the air,
because if I keep the two wires close together, close to the surface of the water,
it will rather go through the water than through the air.
That is very interesting.
These small bridges we make are cool!
It does not matter where I keep the wires in the glass,
because the electrical pattern remains the same
I can bring them far apart, closer together.
That does exactly the same.
I can see shades of green.
That’s pretty cool!
I will do it again.
Okay, we probably have too much fun.
We better stop.
This was a very cool experiment and very unexpected with the water coming up.
Of course the real question is: how does distilled water taste after being electrocuted?
It’s very warm.
I think there are pieces of wire in it.
Very interesting.
It is hot on the top and cold at the bottom.
It tastes electric.
Let’s summarize what we have learned today.
There is nothing in distilled water except the water itself and naturally it will not conduct electricity.
Then we had tried normal water and that led a little bit of electricity.
We then tried to add bath soap and we saw that this worked even better.
Eventually we started using distilled water again, but this time with higher tension
and we saw that even if water is non-conductive, it still conducts with high voltage.
Thank you for being there again,
a big shout-out to my friend Jerem for giving this neon sign.
I see you in the next video.
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