Earth Battery SG

[jeanna]

plant battery #2

I made a miniature plant battery yesterday.
This one is made in 2 pressed peat pots with the mg ribbon between the inner and outer and the copper wire inside the inner one.
I also put a tablespoon of ground dolomite in the outer area where the mg ribbon is.
At first I got nothing except the meter's evidence that there was 1.7v and shorted across a 0.5 ohm resistor the amps were 5.8mA.

In the end, I piled more soil over the top of the inner peat pot so there was no separation and watered it a lot.
Then I reduced the base resistor of the germanium joule thief to zero and it lit.
It lit slowly and built, so I believe that having the memory cap across the leads helps.
It is still on and has grown in brightness over the last 12 hours, so ...


So, now, I want to know if the one without the memory cap will work today.

It may be that the peat pot was too dry for a while and the extra soil and the watering is all it needed to get going.

I better start writing this in a separate notebook. I think this will be long with many separate threads.

-----
I got the cotton covered bare wire today.
So, it took the royal mail international 7 days to get it to the west coast usa. Not bad, and a lot cheaper than the priority mail option.

jeanna

@Lidmotor,
I really like the idea of making the plant light a red light. This opens up another chapter.
The "full circle light"

[Lidmotor]

The test is on

@ I set the plant up with a simple Joule Thief and put a 20F supercap with it. What I will be testing is this way ---just treating this like a normal light that I turn on at night, turn way down (with a 10k pot) when I go to bed, and then let the plant charge up the cap again the next day. I quess other people have had trouble with the magnesium corroding too fast so I may have to check that often. So far the plant doesn't seem to mind the battery but time will tell. I decided that the plant on my boat is a Pothos and not a Philodendron so I may make my next one of these batteries using that plant.

Lidmotor

[jeanna]

magnesium

Hi Lidmotor,

This is a good test.

About harming the plant with either magnesium or copper. It is not an issue, I am sure.
I have been researching magnesium a little more today.
It seems more and more that if anything we need to make sure there are enough microorganisms because their job in nature is to make the magnesium ions get transported in the soil so the plant can use it.

So, if your soil was just dead sterilized soil, you might go outside and get a small handful of moldy or at least wet leaves. I think that might be hard in S CA, but if there is a season for wet leaves it is now.
Grass clippings would be the next best but may not have a mature bunch of microbes.
Or, if you have any worm compost that would probably be good.

jeanna

[Aaron]

Jeanna's Mineral Earth Battery

It seems more and more that if anything we need to make sure there are enough microorganisms because their job in nature is to make the magnesium ions get transported in the soil so the plant can use it.

Jeanna,

Congratulations on your innovation - much cooler than the potato clock!

I'm still watching and hope to replicate it when I can.

For the organisms, there is always the option of just adding mychorrhizal
fungus to the soil and/or adding biochar. It would be interesting to see the
differences with the biochar's carbon added. The biochar makes a good
home for the microorganisms that normally break down the nutrients to
make them bioavailable.

This is the exact mychorrhizal fungus I use:
Garden Grounds - Products

You can see the fungus/bacteria strains included - it's incredible!
Garden Grounds - Ingredients

I have all the copper I'll ever need and just need to get some good
pieces of magnesium like what Jetijs used for his Pacheco experiment.
I was going to turn my 20-25 foot long by 4-5 feet wide garden plot into
a large earth battery for enhanced plant growth, but also for battery
charging.

I was going to use the same plate setup as Nathaniel Drawbough in his
earth battery powered pendulum clock, but I think what you found is
better. He had one of his plates doped with coke (carbon).

It's about time for me to till in all the biochar I took from my woodstove
and threw on my soil that is already enriched with other biochar and the
mychorrhizal fungus. I've had some incredible results including sunflower
roots that were more dense than steel wood pads, literally.

With enough small voltage charges, they can all be added in series to keep
increasing voltages to charge big battery banks.

As a side note, I posted a thread here about a Seafloor Fuel Cell, it is like
an earth battery where one plate is suspended above the bottom of
the sea floor, the other is below and the biological organism's action is
what helps to create the power similar to what you're explaining.
http://www.energeticforum.com/renewa...fuel-cell.html

[stringguy]

magnesium

i was asking my pharmacist friend about magnesium, and where to find it, and in what forms, and the first thing she said was, most people have a big lack of it in their bodies. a bit off the subject, but interesting, maybe veggie batteries could be mutually benifitial.


harpbloke

[jeanna]

I have been playing with the basic battery today.
The #1 battery stopped today after 6 1/2 days constant draw.

Eventually I added some more "EM" and a pinch of dolomite and within a few seconds it began again.
It is still low and I ought to give it a rest. I will after the light goes out. Then when the microbes and dolomite get in there, I might see another week.

The small plant battery #2 has dolomite and water but no "EM".
t is still lit up brightly after about 24 hours.

@Aaron,
Thank you.
And, thank you for that link to the mychorrhizome source. I will definitely get some.
[I have been wanting a source for that anyway. All I have is a bag of unused oyster mushroom plugs, which are good for this, but I want a mix.]

@Stringguy,
Hi,
a garden center is the place I got this.
It is not limestone exactly but my package has words something like ground dolomite limestone. That may be what is locally mined. there is a big limestone deposit here in washington. On the east coast, it never had the dolomite and limestone designation together. It all seems to come from the ocean beds from some eon or another, though, so it is available everywhere.

@lidmotor,
I always thought the name for philodendron was pothos too. Here is what I found on that

Pothos


A popular, easy-to-grow indoor plant, Pothos is often called devil's ivy or variegated
philodendron. Pothos is a common name, too. Botanically it is Epipremnum. The reason for all the confusion is that until 1956 it had never been seen in flower. Botanists classify all plants on the basis of their flowers or other reproductive parts. Pothos matures at 40 feet or taller in its native southeast Asian jungles, but in pots seldom exceeds 6 feet.

I am curious to see how the total run time differs when the soil has a 'rest'.
It is reasonable to give it a break, but harder to test.
I have only the 1F memory caps here.
I am so glad you and slayer are doing different tests with this!!
Thank you !!

There is another really effective place to add a cap and that is across the base resistor. It seems to lower the amps draw a lot on these jt circuits. I keep needing more caps of the size 101 (=100pF) because they work so well in that base resistor spot.

---
OK
I seems that the light is still on after a 60 minutes so, it must be either the EM or the dolomite.

I found a research paper about revitalizing the soils in N Australia. The plants want electrical conductivity. Imagine this, it was one of the elements they tested for.

Here is the quote:

CONCLUSIONS

*

A higher electrical conductivity (EC) was observed when sulphate of magnesium was applied to reach 8 mmolc/cm3 of Mg in the soil in the absence of the plant. When the plant was present, there was an increase of EC, proportional to the amount of magnesium sulphate applied.
*

Plant height, green and dry matter yield and leaf area: dry matter weight ratio presented better results in the soil containing 8 mmolc/cm3 of Mg.
*

The absorption of magnesium was proportional to the rates of magnesium sulphate applied. However, the absorption of most of the nutrients was larger when the bean was developed in the presence of 8 mmolc/cm3 of Mg.

for the full report

jeanna

[Lidmotor]

More fun with batteries

@ Jeanna
My mg ribbon came today. Just for fun I took a 1/2" piece off and used a penny to made a tiny battery. I still puts out 1.3 volts. I just stuck it in a tiny cup of tap water. I also tried it in the potted plant and it worked there also. I have it running a blinking neon circuit right now and I want to see what the mg looks like when the battery goes dead. The less noble metal is the magnesiun and is the one that gets eaten up. I am afraid that the mg ribbon in the plant battery is what is going to give out. I took the coleman firestarter mg piece out of the pot today to look at it and it was already getting pitted after just one days run. It is a big piece of metal though and if we can keep the electrolyte in the soil right tnen that plant battery should run a long time. I will have to get some of those elements that you are adding to the soil.
I also tried carbon instead of copper and that worked. I used an electric motor graphite brush as well as tried a "D" cell carbon electrode. The electric motor brush worked the best.

The Pothos on the boat is really what they call "Golden Pothos" and the leavers are green with some yellow on them. It grows in kinda long strings if you let it. The Philodendron plant that I bought looks like it but must be a distant cousin because the leaves are all green and have a different shape.



Lidmotor

[jeanna]

@ Jeanna
My mg ribbon came today. Just for fun I took a 1/2" piece off and used a penny to made a tiny battery. I still puts out 1.3 volts. I just stuck it in a tiny cup of tap water. I also tried it in the potted plant and it worked there also. I have it running a blinking neon circuit right now and I want to see what the mg looks like when the battery goes dead.

Blinking neon!!!
That is amazing. I thought a blinking led was great.
Goodness.

The less nobel metal is the magnesiun and is the one that gets eaten up. I am afraid that the mg ribbon in the plant battery is what is going to give out

.

Here is the plan
It is not going to get eaten up IF you can provide magnesium in another form that the soil microbes can deliver to the magnesium ribbon as quickly as it is eaten up.

So, it is very helpful to have an idea how fast the ribbon goes without any help, then what microbes and which form to resupply the ribbon with the lost ions at the same speed.

I was very inspired by the old timer's stories about how the old earth batteries were so decomposed that they were apparently no longer even there, yet they still worked. This potted battery idea is the result of a lot of hopeful contemplation about that.
But it can only work if the ions are replaced as quickly as the battery uses them up.

The wild card is how much the plant will want for itself.
I read today that plants will absorb magnesium when it is abundant, so I expect a lot of plant growth as well.

..... and if we can keep the electrolyte in the soil right then that plant battery should run a long time.

Exactly.

the plant battery#1 stopped today after 6 1/2 days running straight.
I added some nutrients and it is going again.
It has been 5 hours since I added those nutrients.

I will have to get some of those elements that you are adding to the soil.

I suggest dolomite and the stuff I mentioned last night.

I also tried carbon instead of copper and that worked. I used an electric motor graphite brush as well as tried a "D" cell carbon electrode. The electric motor brush worked the best.

Oh that is very good information.
I found that spent britta filter granules were the best in my eb tests a while ago, but they were not really usable. You cannot solder them to anything.

A motor brush is a great idea!

There is a possibility that this can be recharged.
The cu sulphate and the mg sulphate seem to be the players for that one, but for me, that would be second best.

I will have to try your coin cell tomorrow.
I have a collection of pre 83 pennies just for this kind of fun.


jeanna

[Lidmotor]

"Plant Battery" and a friend

@Jeanna and All
I experimented with lots of things but this was the most interesting. I put a second plant next to a plant battery that was connected to a running Slayer exciter that was connected to a charged up supercap. The effect was that BOTH plants got energized and you could light an LED on an AV plug off either one. It made me wonder if plant could possibly communicate on wave lengths of energy that we barely understand.

YouTube - Plant battery and a friend.ASF

Cheers,

Lidmotor

[jeanna]

plants whispering secret messages

The sec exciter is certainly the most efficient thing around.
I tried to post a link to the youtube video called
Panic in the Cabbages - The Secret Life of Plants
but I got an error message. this is very old research and an old movie, but it shows what you are suspecting.
It is possible that what you are seeing is the water from the plant responding, but I am sure you are correct. It is 2 plants having a good laugh from the high frequency.

I guess it would be interesting to see if
1- the philodendron is hot way over where it is out of range by the air, and
2- if it is not, then see if joining them with a long wire by the soil will make it hot.
This is very fun.
I am so glad you are doing these experiments.


jeanna

[Lidmotor]

One wire plant chain

The sec exciter is certainly the most efficient thing around.
I tried to post a link to the youtube video called
Panic in the Cabbages - The Secret Life of Plants
but I got an error message. this is very old research and an old movie, but it shows what you are suspecting.
It is possible that what you are seeing is the water from the plant responding, but I am sure you are correct. It is 2 plants having a good laugh from the high frequency.

I guess it would be interesting to see if
1- the philodendron is hot way over where it is out of range by the air, and
2- if it is not, then see if joining them with a long wire by the soil will make it hot.
This is very fun.
I am so glad you are doing these experiments.


jeanna

We can connect these plant batteries with just one wire using the exciter. I will have to run a test with several linked PBs and see what happens to the output voltage on the one at the end of the chain.
That cabbage video was very interesting. There were several others but I didn't have time to watch them.
This kinda reminds me of the Avatar movie central theme dealing with energy. One pharse in the movie had words to the effect -- "we are only borrowing the energy and we have to give it back."

Lidmotor

[Aaron]

Peter Tompkins

Jeanna,

Interesting video clip.

Peter Tompkins book - Secret Life of Plants - has some similar things in it.
I think they hooked a polygraph to some plants. Some people thought about
tearing off leaves or something and that wasn't seen as a threat. But the
moment someone thought about burning one of the plants, the polygraph
hooked to the plant went crazy. Been quite a few years so I don't remember
the details, but that was the gist of one of the most interesting things
I thought the book had.

Would be interesting if you could control the brightness of an led from the
plant battery by your mind - depending on having good thoughts or bad.
Should be easy enough to hook a scope to the plants while the plant
battery is hooked to it.

[jeanna]

control of plant battery

Hi Aaron,
Did you watch the 'panic in the cabbage patch' video?

I am sure it is possible to control the battery with MY mind, but this video showed results from russia that the plants could control their own watering, light, and heat, when they were connected to proper sensors etc. It was in the last minute of that very interesting video.

I would guess that I could direct the lights toward the leaves and the plant would or could learn to regulate the light level.

I wonder how it would do that? by drying it out?
Could the transpiration rate of the plant be part of this electricity, and could it change that rate to effect the light?

I will possibly need to give the plant a way to self regulate.
OMG this is so fun!

Perhaps I should move this to another thread?
I will take suggestions, since it is not really about designing a joule thief as much as just using one??

jeanna

[Aaron]

plant battery

Hi Aaron,
Did you watch the 'panic in the cabbage patch' video?

I am sure it is possible to control the battery with MY mind, but this video showed results from russia that the plants could control their own watering, light, and heat, when they were connected to proper sensors etc. It was in the last minute of that very interesting video.

I would guess that I could direct the lights toward the leaves and the plant would or could learn to regulate the light level.

I wonder how it would do that? by drying it out?
Could the transpiration rate of the plant be part of this electricity, and could it change that rate to effect the light?

I will possibly need to give the plant a way to self regulate.
OMG this is so fun!

Perhaps I should move this to another thread?
I will take suggestions, since it is not really about designing a joule thief as much as just using one??

jeanna

Jeanna,

Yes, that cabbage video is wild. It is what reminded me of the
Peter Tompkins book. That vid had a subtitle of secret life of plants,
I don't recall if that was in that book or not.

Having the plants control their own lighting, temp, etc... is awesome.
I think for your plant battery concept, would have to know what is the
benefit to the plant that the plant could respond to.

If there were a lot of LED's like what Lidmotor did and they were aimed
at the plant, maybe it could be something like that as you mentioned.

The plants may be
able to control their own voltages and with some voltage controlled
switch, when it gets to whatever V then the circuit is on shining light
on the plants.

Where there's a will, there's a way!

You could start a new thread on plant batteries and plant's influence.
It is quite a subject on it's own. Up to you.

If you do, I can move the plant battery posts from this thread into that
if you and everyone want. Just let me know.

The possibilities are endless. Plant influence security alarm system -
plant doesn't recognize the person in a building and activates an alarm,
security light, etc... Multi cd player, plant selects whatever music it wants
to play. Plant can be used as a lie detector for people. I bet they can even
give a response to what will be the most probable outcome of something.
Random number generators or more better, random event generators could
be influenced by plant input to give true randomness, etc...

Anyway, I think it is a very fun subject too!

[jeanna]

Thanks Aaron,
I was getting confused.
I have a joule thief EB thread on the ou forum and I was forgetting that this is an earth battery thread.
As such it is fine here, and makes plenty of sense.

--------

My small plant battery opted out last night.
It ran for 96 hours without stop on a germanium joule thief and a bright white at the basic jt spot which draws more heavily than if it were lighting from a secondary.
I dissected it and the ribbon is all chewed up. It broke into 5 pieces when I examined it. The copper has some blotches of greenish oxide on it too.
The plant is glowing.

Has anyone else noticed an improvement in the appearance of the plant?
I might be seeing things!
-
This plant battery#2 was a kind of control for the least amount of magnesium. I added dolomite but no microbes and the way it was made was with as much separation of electrodes and plant as possible.

Next is the same thing but with microbes added.
edit
I began the next which is #3 at 9PM pdt tonight.


jeanna