Kelvin Water Dropper - The Setup

The Setup

The simplest setup for this is as pictured at right. A reservoir has two holes that drip water (or other liquid). The streams of dripping water each pass through a conducting ring, and land in a bucket. The buckets must be electrically isolated from each other and from their environment. Similarly, the rings must be electrically isolated from each other and their environment. The left ring is electrically connected with (wired to) the right bucket and the right ring is wired to the left bucket. It is essential that each ring be placed around the point at which the stream of water passing through it first breaks into drops.

If the buckets are metal (conducting) the wires may be attached to the buckets. Otherwise, the bucket-end of each wire can just sit in its bucket, as long as it is contacting the water in the bucket.