Fun with a few 9V batteries. (244 of them)

Fun with a few 9V batteries. (244 of them) @ The Custom Geek

So I needed a break from working on a project again, and I remembered that I had a bunch of 9V batteries and thought, ‘I wonder if that would be enough voltage to hold an arc?‘. The answer is yes, it would. So I made a little video of melting some alligator clips and crispifying some LED’s, a CD, and a cap. Or at least trying to blow up the cap, that was one tough cookie..

I used 244 9V batteries, that were not new, but not dead. When you do the math, this should be 2,196 Volts, but that is when they are new. I measured (in blocks) 2,000 volts total. Lots of sparky..


Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!

Join us every Wednesday night at 8pm ET for Ask an Engineer!

Join over 38,000+ makers on Adafruit’s Discord channels and be part of the community! http://adafru.it/discord

CircuitPython – The easiest way to program microcontrollers – CircuitPython.org


New Products – Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers! — New Products 11/15/2024 Featuring Adafruit bq25185 USB / DC / Solar Charger with 3.3V Buck Board! (Video)

Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: A New Arduino MicroPython Package Manager, How-Tos and Much More! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi

EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey

Adafruit IoT Monthly — The 2024 Recap Issue!

Maker Business – Adafruit Daily — Apple to build another chip at TSMC Arizona

Electronics – Adafruit Daily — SMT Tip – Stop moving around!

Get the only spam-free daily newsletter about wearables, running a "maker business", electronic tips and more! Subscribe at AdafruitDaily.com !


3 Comments

  1. Oh man! That’s like a childhood dream!

    I would have cooked a hot dog with them. 😉

  2. @George, thats funny, my wife asked what in the world I was doing and I told her I was engineering this new thing called arc soldering.. Yeah, thats it, I did it for science. ish.

  3. Oh man…
    This made my blood run cold. Among the many things I have done as a working engineer was designing precision high-voltage DC power supplies. It that environment, I learned (thankfully, not the hard way) that working with HV anything requires a great deal of attention and awareness of the dangers involved.
    Under the wrong set of conditions, the string of batteries demonstrated in the video could be lethal.
    Please educate yourselves thoroughly and take great caution if you choose to play with things like this. I’m serious.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.