Living offgrid with small solar system(s)

[George Harmony]

@muhendis,

I got you.

Thats why im experimenting for example dirth+saltwater etc etc.... Or dirth with carbon and different kinds of cathodes and anodes.

And as discussed b4 also reading about different kinds joule thief

Edited June 9, 2016 by George Harmony

[Naam]

OK so you have a cell which generates 1V at all of 50uA (the current drawn by your multimeter).

That's a whole 50uW, sooo, 20,000 of them will light a 1W LED.

can't one amplify the output using a lot of dirth Crossy?

[George Harmony]

@naam,on boring youtube you can find this ID = "Earth Energy Researcher"

I think its not fake what he did as experiments, like this one:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rBXSiwLebtw

[Crossy]

George, I don't think anyone is saying it's fake.

It's interesting schoolboy science but if really useful amounts of power were available (running 6 LEDs and an LCD clock for an indeterminate time is not a 'useful' amount of power) we would all be running our lights and aircon off the garden.

You also have to factor in the cost of the materials. The really good electrodes need reactive metals (magnesium etc) which are expensive and this is the electrode which gets used up. The power isn't free!

In your area which is easier to obtain at 10PM, AA batteries or magnesium anodes?

[George Harmony]

If i understood well 2 different metals can be used for earth battery.

Metal

... Potential

V Cu/CuSO4 electrode

Magnesium (pure) -1.75

Magnesium (alloy) -1.60

Zinc -1.10

Aluminum (alloy) -1.05

Aluminum (pure) -0.8 22

Steel (clean) -0.50 to -0.80

Steel (rusted) -0.20 to -0.50

Cast Iron -0.50

It does not need to be expensive. Perhaps handy to charge a capacitor continiously also during the nights

Added:

With some basic ingenuity, you should be able to pull together a portable kit that you can plant in any moist soil, and which can supply you with free energy for lighting, small devices, or perhaps a recharge station. If you developed this technology, you could very easily power a small community for free with a very small investment in simple resources (metals, wire, etc). There are people powering entire buildings using earth batteries in the same way that solar panels are used. The difference is, they keep their mouths shut. The Powers That Be dont like this technology, because they cant make money from it.

Interesting: https://wakeuporkney.wordpress.com/tag/earth-battery/

Edited June 10, 2016 by George Harmony

[George Harmony]

Ive made a similar setup of examples on youtube and connect a 3volt led without joule thief. Its now here 22.34 and this led is still burning as from 19.15 with only saltwater without carbon or magnesium. Ive made 10 cells with icetray(cubes) and use copper coil and galvanised screws.

Tomorrow i will imitate 2nd pict with dirth. According to some it can then burn for weeks and perhaps longer if you only put water in.

There are perhaps electrolites which can be added to give more volts and/or current enabling to run usb gadgets.

Edited June 10, 2016 by George Harmony

[Crossy]

Looks good George, I like the idea of using the ice-cube tray.

Please post :-

• The LED voltage when it's running.
• The LED current when it's running.
• Your calculated power output in Watts (Volts x Amps).

You'll probably get about 150 Lumens per Watt from that LED.

It will be interesting to see how long it runs for before the (very thin) zinc coating on the screws is used up.

[Jing Joe]

Ive made a similar setup of examples on youtube and connect a 3volt led without joule thief. Its now here 22.34 and this led is still burning as from 19.15 with only saltwater without carbon or magnesium. Ive made 10 cells with icetray(cubes) and use copper coil and galvanised screws.

Tomorrow i will imitate 2nd pict with dirth. According to some it can then burn for weeks and perhaps longer if you only put water in.

There are perhaps electrolites which can be added to give more volts and/or current enabling to run usb gadgets.

Now George that middle picture of the screws and wires in the ice cube tray and lighting the LED just blew me away.

Well done.

Again;-- The efficiency of LEDS come "Shining" through.

[Jing Joe]

Hi Guys, the subject of HHO keeps popping up here and so I looked on Google and was amazed how its really taken off and become quite established, in the jewellery field especially.

Saw a factory worker melting the copper tails together in electric motor field windings.

After a few more projects here, HHO will be on the agenda and that will be nice timing for when my last big LPG bottle will be handed back to the gas company. (And also avoid their annual cylinder maintenance fee)

Then I'll also be able to braze weld again in my workshop after declining for 20 years now the annual rental fee for oxygen cylinders.

[George Harmony]

The led is stil burning but rather weak. Ive ordered a digital multimeter, not arrived yet. With that voltmeter of my nabor i measure a voltage between 5-6v.

As soon as i receive my multimeter i can find out more. Connecting 2 leds was not possible.

I think earth/mud battery will work better cause of the microbes, perhaps lower voltage and thus more cells.

If i know for sure i can run usb gadgets (fan and lamps) i will use titanium with mud inside in pots and outside under the ground. i then have hopefully a long life low voltage power source

[KonaRain]

Thanks for doing all this..

I need

Small power! How's this one?

https://youtu.be/mPywk_ZTIng

free Tesla type energy?

Aloha!

[George Harmony]

Thanks for doing all this..

I need

Small power! How's this one?

https://youtu.be/mPywk_ZTIng

free Tesla type energy?

Aloha!

@crossy posted before a small handy crank generator incl leds.

Also many types of hp charger available with cranking. In combination with supercapacitors it can work well for low voltage gadgets.

[Gary A]

The main lesson to be learned is that you don't get something from nothing. You need energy in to get energy out.Solar panels are a good example. Energy from the sun gives energy from the solar panel. No sun and no power from the panel. Magnets are interesting and useful but you still need some sort of power to get power. Power from the sun is free so that is about as close to free power as we can get. Many scientists are working every day to come up with more efficient devices to harvest more power from the sun. The future of energy will come from the sun.

The drinking dunking bird is very interesting but hardly perpetual motion. Has anyone tried alcohol rather than water. It may make the bird run faster.

[George Harmony]

This is what i soon trying to immitate. You can charge your hp running a lamp and your radio. Few of these in and outside your house can be wonderful in addition to my existing small solar system.

And with cheap easy to get materials.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bP63SVEQYnA

[George Harmony]

And this is specially for @naam in German: Cement battery with salt, no wet dream ???

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ipCfSV-TdfQ

[Muhendis]

Thanks for doing all this..

I need

Small power! How's this one?

https://youtu.be/mPywk_ZTIng

free Tesla type energy?

Aloha!

@crossy posted before a small handy crank generator incl leds.

Also many types of hp charger available with cranking. In combination with supercapacitors it can work well for low voltage gadgets.

George. That's not a hand crank generator. Its a coil winding machine and the coils are for a wind turbine. Lots of people are doing this including me. I must say I also like your ice cube battery.

Edited June 11, 2016 by Muhendis

[Muhendis]

The main lesson to be learned is that you don't get something from nothing. You need energy in to get energy out.Solar panels are a good example. Energy from the sun gives energy from the solar panel. No sun and no power from the panel. Magnets are interesting and useful but you still need some sort of power to get power. Power from the sun is free so that is about as close to free power as we can get. Many scientists are working every day to come up with more efficient devices to harvest more power from the sun. The future of energy will come from the sun.

The drinking dunking bird is very interesting but hardly perpetual motion. Has anyone tried alcohol rather than water. It may make the bird run faster.

This is all true but I would add that all our current energy also comes from the sun. Every living thing past, present and future gets its energy from the sun. Fossil fuels are plants and animals that died many millions of years ago and can be viewed as stored solar energy. A bit like a storage battery in a way I suppose.

[grin]

What about nuclear or chemical energy? Or gravitational energy? Or converting mechanical energy like piezoelectric energy harvesting? Agreed that the sun is the source of most of our energy but not all.

Edited June 11, 2016 by grin

[George Harmony]

Sun is very effective energy BUT for the users of solar systems i think more important is how to store that energy for after peak hours. Now we use batteries. Perhaps very soon with aluminium air batteries or bio-batteries or other types of wettbatteries we perhaps do not need the sun anymore. Solar can be effective ro run gadgets and electrical appliances during peakhours. Just my thoughts.

Example:

Aluminum batteries developed at other laboratories usually died after just 100 charge-discharge cycles. But the Stanford battery was able to withstand more than 7,500 cycles without any loss of capacity. This was the first time an ultra-fast aluminum-ion battery was constructed with stability over thousands of cycles, the authors wrote.

By comparison, a typical lithium-ion battery lasts about 1,000 cycles.

Another feature of the aluminum battery is flexibility, Gong said. You can bend it and fold it, so it has the potential for use in flexible electronic devices. Aluminum is also a cheaper metal than lithium.

https://news.stanford.edu/2015/04/06/aluminum-ion-battery-033115/

[George Harmony]

How about this type of battery. Do not need to soak in water. Works better if the air is humid or put it above a glas of water.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4jjZ6iMq14

Will try to replicate this also soon.

[Muhendis]

In the UK, some considerable time ago there was a man who lived not too far from the Eccleshall long wave radio transmitter. He caused a lot of problems because he built a one wavelength receiving aerial and tuned his very large receiver to take power from the radio transmissions. His whole house was powered in this way which, I might add is highly illegal.

[George Harmony]

Many pages about batteries and lamps and power, time for a joke :

Customer: Do you have any two-watt, 4-volt bulbs?

Sales Rep: For what?

Customer: No, two.

Sales Rep: Two what?

Customer: Yes.

Sales Rep: No.

That customer could be me ....hahahahaha ????

http://www.powerstream.com/powerhumor.htm

Btw,here is info abt different kind of batteries : http://www.powerstream.com/BatteryFAQ.html

Edited June 11, 2016 by George Harmony

[Muhendis]

Thought you guys might be interested in this related article. http://www.gizmag.com/solar-voyager-autonomous-boat-atlantic/43738/

[Jing Joe]

Many scientists are working every day to come up with more efficient devices to harvest more power from the sun. The future of energy will come from the sun.

The drinking dunking bird is very interesting but hardly perpetual motion. Has anyone tried alcohol rather than water. It may make the bird run faster.

Oh Gary please forgive my mischievous sense of humour but both your last two short sentences have mind boggling but potentially conflicting outcomes.

Not quite the technical humour of George's two watt lamp joke. Naam once joked about how little water he drank.

Seriously now;- there's nice science in the dunking birds and I haven't seen them for 40 years. (Summer tourists in Rome's fountains?)

Re future energy coming from the sun, Agree Gary. (also wind power is gaining greatly here in OZ)

I don't think there was one comment about my post about a future project of mine that will see a group of thermo-electric devices engineered to use the reverse effect to Peltier. (forgotten the name).

The hot side common plate will be facing the sun and the voltage/current produced is yet to be discovered when I import the ten devices that are made for this. Nice safe Max temp rating of 150 - 200 but reaching this temp would means not enough cooling so aiming for better balance.

I'll source the cool side from my large rain water tank with its constant 20 degrees.The device will be about one metre above the surface and the cool plate side transfer will be via the "heat tube" (3m?) with its two concentric copper pipes and refrigerant liquid. Haven't googled "heat Tube" for many years so goodness know what refinements have happened.

First thoughts about injecting the refrigerant will be the rechargeable gas lighter valve set into the outer casing of the larger copper pipe (40mm?) and injecting propane. If that fails I'll get a air-con mechanic to connect a nipple and inject some of his gas.

When winter night time temps drop to typically zero here, the output will of course be reversed but there will be a permanent bridge rectifier between the output and whatever the test DC load/battery will be.

With a 1kw wind gen, 2.5kw solar panels and a backup 600 watt petrol gen, you might realise I'm being inspired to experiment by "our George" who started all this some 1300 posts ago.

If it works, imagine this in a tropical village where night temps could be 35 and below ground temps about 20??

Good to see some older faces still around revisiting.

Edited June 12, 2016 by Jing Joe

[Muhendis]

Many scientists are working every day to come up with more efficient devices to harvest more power from the sun. The future of energy will come from the sun.

The drinking dunking bird is very interesting but hardly perpetual motion. Has anyone tried alcohol rather than water. It may make the bird run faster.

Good to see some older faces still around revisiting.

Older than watt (what)?

[Jing Joe]

Many scientists are working every day to come up with more efficient devices to harvest more power from the sun. The future of energy will come from the sun.

The drinking dunking bird is very interesting but hardly perpetual motion. Has anyone tried alcohol rather than water. It may make the bird run faster.

Good to see some older faces still around revisiting.

Older than watt (what)?

Hi M. Maybe "Watt" was named after an ancient Dutch professor relative of George who was very old.

Obviously I'm having a day off. of being serious.

Happy Sunday to you all. Slow down George, have a day off too.

And i just noticed they were "drinking dunking birds" in Rome's fountains.

Edited June 12, 2016 by Jing Joe

[Naam]

what do the resident learned learning gurus think about my idea attaching a crankshaft to some drinking dunking birds, convert the kinetic energy into electrical energy, amplify the latter by using supercapacitors and drive an aircon compressor?

[Muhendis]

what do the resident learned learning gurus think about my idea attaching a crankshaft to some drinking dunking birds, convert the kinetic energy into electrical energy, amplify the latter by using supercapacitors and drive an aircon compressor?

[Jing Joe]

what do the resident learned learning gurus think about my idea attaching a crankshaft to some drinking dunking birds, convert the kinetic energy into electrical energy, amplify the latter by using supercapacitors and drive an aircon compressor?

Good one Naam and good on ya. Seems like the seriousness of it all has just had a break and back into it on Monday.

The subject of wind-up torches has surfaced so I checked out my novelty torch last night to discover 3 x 1.2V batteries that have never been a success, so I may yet get to use the super caps I bought as suggested in some posts.

[Naam]

i was the proud owner of a wind-up torch Joe. that was approximately 62 years ago. i also remember that, around the same time, an uncle of mine had powered a hut (lights only) with 'free' energy from a near by long wave transmitter.