WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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I have no idea what’s going to happen next.

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Normally, when I do a video, I have a script
and a plan.

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But this time, no such luck.

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This is the high voltage test lab
at the University of Manchester

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and the idea is that we’re going to hit
one of those

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with more than a million volts
from one of these.

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I… I should probably get back down.

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This is the UK’s largest
multipurpose high-voltage lab.

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We basically test, design and do research
on all kinds of electrical assets.

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We also do use the lab for teaching.

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We have an impulse generator that can
go up to 2 million volts.

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Historically this lab would have been used
to actually test

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how lightning affects an aircraft,

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but we’ve never tested a drone before.

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And a drone's actually made of 
composite materials, plastics.

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Is it going to fry the electricals?

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Is it going to fry the battery?

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Or is it going to be fine?

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>> What you think's going to happen?

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I think it will blow up.

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I probably shouldn’t say that, should I?

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This is the kind of capacitor that you might
buy at a local electronics shop

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to put in a circuit.

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And this is the kind of capacitor
that they use here at the lab.

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Each one of these red boxes can store 100,000
volts, and there are 20 of them in this tower.

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So when the trigger fires, all that power
is going to go through the resistors in front of me,

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up, down through that little brown wire
to the single point.

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Then it’s going to go through the air, as
lightning, to the ground rod.

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There’s just going to be
a drone in the way.

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Oh, here we go.

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Here we go.

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It's charging.

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We’re at a million.

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Come on...

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Yes!

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I think we got it(!)

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Ohh, look at that!

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Yeah, it’s not even very hot.

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That’s actually a little bit disappointing.

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I was kinda hoping...

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-- Oh, it smells, though. Can you smell that?
-- Does it?

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I probably shouldn’t inhale that, actually.

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Burnt motor.

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What I would do is...
let me just take the battery out.

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Yeah, let’s take the battery out.

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Battery’s intact.

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Battery’s still running.

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Let’s try switching it back on.

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I’m going to stand back, just in case...

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Let go...?

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No. The internals are dead.

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Battery’s good!

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The entry point is coming through the motors
of the propeller, which is made out of metal.

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And it seems to have exited out of a point
which is almost the handles.

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Even though they are made out of plastic,

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there’s still a sharp point which means
they have a high electric field.

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So you still will get an exit point, which
is what's happened.

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But all that current has gone through the
motors and all the electronics, which has

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pretty much fried it.

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But it seems to have skipped the battery!

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The reason why the battery is protected,

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the battery does have a metal casing around it,
if you kind of think about it.

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So it’s basically a Faraday cage.

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It’s a Faraday cage, so that has probably
protected the battery,

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Right.

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But everything around it has been
fried to bits.

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All right.

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What I would recommend is almost having something
sticking out from the top.

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Almost like a metal electrode again, so like
a lightning interceptor.

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So that attaches to that point, and you can
have an exit point.

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We'll try and see if we can put a metal tape
and a protruding part outside,

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which will hopefully attract the lightning
so it doesn’t go through anything else.

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Let's do it!
That’s why we have a backup drone.

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A million volts.

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All right.

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Here we go!

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- The propellers!
- The propellers!

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It’s on its feet
and the battery’s still lit.

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Have you lost communication?

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Yeah. It's off. “Aircraft disconnected”.

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All right. Let's bring it in.

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Go for it, Tom. You first.

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Okay, so it blew the propellers off.

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-- Man, they went!
-- They did.

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I can’t see any visible points...

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On the last one there was
charring on the plastic.

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So we’ve got the picture,
similar to last time,

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seems to be attaching to the propeller and
coming out… there you go.

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It’s completely missed the lightning rod,
hasn’t it?

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Yes.

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At the end of the day, this actually will
tell you that lightning can be unpredictable

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at the same time.

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And in all fairness, it did hit the propellers
again, and comes out the same point.

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What are the streamers?

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When you have a high voltage, streamers are
what go up to answer the streamer that's coming

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from the cloud.
-- Right.

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When both of those connect, then you get a channel.

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-- Should have a look at the slo-mo?
-- Absolutely.

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-- There you go.
-- There’s the strike...

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And there’s the streamer!

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-- The streamer’s still there.
-- Look at that!

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The channel’s already formed,
so the current’s already going through.

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Again, you can see little glowing embers,
the motor that's burned out.

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All right, so. Battery back in.

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No.

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No, it’s dead.

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So the lesson is, if you’re going to fly
your drone in a lightning storm...

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-- Don’t.
-- Don’t.

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-- Thank you!
-- No problem, Tom.

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-- Thanks, guys!
-- Cheers, Tom.

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Thank you to everyone at the
University of Manchester’s high-voltage lab.

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Pull down the description for more about them,
and please, don’t try this at home.

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If you have a high-voltage laboratory at home.