The Hacksmith 300V Capacitor Hammer of Thor

2017-10-05 | By The Hacksmith

License: See Original Project Capacitors

This project was created by Engineering Superheroes of Hackmith Industries.

DO NOT ATTEMPT to Re-Create

Behold the power of Mjolnir! Or at least 300 volts of it.

With Thor: Ragnarok coming out next month, the cosplay and maker communities have had Thor fever. Never ones to miss out on the fun, or let their friend Allen Pan (AKA Sufficiently Advanced) have all the fun with Mjolnir, the Hacksmith team set out to make their own version of the mythical hammer forged from Uru by the Dwarves of Nidavellir with the heat of a star. Unfortunately for Thor, he loses Mjolnir along with his luscious locks at the beginning of the new movie (It’s in the preview, this is not a spoiler!).

Check out the video below to see how the team gave their Mjolnir the power of lightning!

How Does it Work?

The team put a large capacitor inside of Thor's hammer with a charging circuit. You can charge the capacitor using any wall outlet. There is a relay coil in series with the capacitor charging circuit to limit the inrush current. When you plug it in, the relay buzzes because of the bridge rectifier. When the buzzing stops, you know the charging has completed! Now that the capacitor is charged, the fun begins. Touch the contacts to anything conductive and unleash the wrath of the thunder god!

Some overcharge protection is needed to make sure that your home electrical grid isn’t consumed by the power of Thor. A bridge rectifier circuit is used to take AC input and output it as DC by putting it through a bunch of diodes. The DC then goes into a capacitor and is charged to the peak value of the sine wave. A relay is placed in the charging circuit so the capacitor doesn’t draw too much power.

A bridge rectifier circuit

Despite being charged with 240 volts, after the incoming power is converted from AC to DC, the peak Vrms of the sine wave gives the hammer a voltage output around 300. With all this stored energy, be sure to give the hammer a good whack to make sure it’s discharged before putting it away!

The cycle of Thor!

More Hammers?!

The Hacksmith team is actually making several different versions of Mjolnir to celebrate the upcoming Thor movie, so stay tuned for more hammers on the Hacksmith’s Youtube channel! And be sure to check out the Hacksmith VLOG channel to see the progression of builds and watch James almost maim or kill himself even more!

Have questions or comments? Continue the conversation on TechForum, DigiKey's online community and technical resource.

Visit TechForum

Arduino | 3D Printing | Raspberry Pi