Earth Battery SG

[Lidmotor]

Plant Battery life span

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.


jeanna

I worked alot with the magnesium and did some research also. If you want to see something fun take a little piece of the Mg ribbon and drop it in some vinegar. It makes hydrogen gas so be careful around it. The stuff basically dissolves is a mild acid BUT---if you add just a little the performance goes up on the cu /mg battery. It makes me wonder about the correct Ph on the plant soil to keep the plant happy but still make a good long running battery.
I think that large chunks of metal are a better idea than the ribbon because of how fast things breakdown. My Philodendron plant battery is still going fine after 4 days and today I hooked up my little JT friend "Dewey" to it. They make an odd couple but hey--whatever works.

Lidmotor

[Aaron]

on topic thread

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.

LOL, I was thinking this was a jt thread too for some reason!

Sounds good staying here.

[jeanna]

.........---if you add just a little the performance goes up on the cu /mg battery. It makes me wonder about the correct Ph on the plant soil to keep the plant happy but still make a good long running battery.

Good point, lidmotor.

I tested the pH on the new one #3 because I just got it finished and it looks like somewhere between pH8 and pH9.
It is probably the dolomite doing this, but I never checked the pH of my plants before.

jeanna

....no picture of dewey and Philo?

[CosmicFarmer]

My entire herb patch died off last winter - except the catnip. The catnip was less then a foot from my tuned magnesium rod and held a entrainment connection through the harsh winter. Now the catnip is crazy big after only a few weeks of spring. I dont know , but after reading this thread I think my EB helped its growth.

The MG rod was dirty, with brown dirt, so I scraped it untill shiny, and then when I put it back, I got 2.4 volts! that is almost a whole volt more then I should be getting.



Its hard to see the wire but I was holding it and you can see it coming out the bottom right of the picture towards the plant.

[Lidmotor]

Dewey & Phyllis

@ Jeanna
I havn't decided about which way to go with the plant battery yet but 'Dewey' and 'Phyllis' (the Phiodendron battery) seem to be hitting it off real well. I have tried several different Joule Thief circuits and SEC exciter circuits but the JT circuit that is in 'Dewey' is winning the contest. His circuit is a JT charging circuit that has two batteries and a DPDT switch. Paul (Kubikop) came up with the circuit over a year ago and led to me building 'Dewey'. 'Phyllis' simply replaces one of the batteries. Here is my video of 'Dewey' when he was born.


YouTube - Boxed Joule Thief

Lidmotor

P.S.---Here is a commercial plant soil tester that I just bought off Ebay. It will check the soil moisture and ph as well as light intensity. It works just like the plant battery but you can't leave it in the soil.
3in1 PH Tester/Moisture/Light Meter Soil Plant Flowers - eBay (item 260581559776 end time Apr-07-10 11:02:39 PDT)

[Aaron]

magnesium

Lidmotor,

Besides the firestarter, any other sources of magnesium rods, plates,
etc... that would be easy to find in local places?

Jetijs had some serious magnesium rods for his Pacheco test. I'll have to
ask him too what kind of places has those.

[Lidmotor]

Magnesium metal sources

Lidmotor,

Besides the firestarter, any other sources of magnesium rods, plates,
etc... that would be easy to find in local places?

Jetijs had some serious magnesium rods for his Pacheco test. I'll have to
ask him too what kind of places has those.

Aaron I looked into it yesterday and the cheapest and easiest place to find small pieces of mg is on Ebay. I am also looking into other sources. It is a common metal and not hard to find. The trick would be to find a place close to where you live that deals with it and go straight there to get scraps pieces to avoid shipping costs. I can find scrap zinc pretty easily but magnesium may be a little harder to find. It really depends on how much you need.

Lidmotor

[kazm]

This site has a lot of things geared towards doing these kinds of experiments:
http://shop.miniscience.com/navigati...word=magnesium

[jeanna]

@cosmicfarmer,
Maybe it is what saved your catnip. Corse it could also be schroedinger's cat wanting a nip! But I think it was the HF.

@lidmotor,
I have wanted to make a Dewey of my own for a while.
Now the reasons are very compelling.
This really gives double results for this plant battery.

Are you able to get Dewey to run with just the mag block and copper pipe? I have heard others complain that there are not enough mA.
This is good news.

-----
I made a little video to share a reed switch motor I just made from a kit.
I thought if others were like me with no drill press or good table saw, they might take advantage of this nicely made kit too.
the kit comes from:
Simple Electric Motors | How It Works: Reed Switch Motor

and the video address is:
my vid on the reed switch motor

There is a little aside in the video where I noticed the light shining brightly from a jt secondary. It was an old dump-ready duracell which I recharged today. I was surprised how well it took the charge. The volts rose to 1.76v and that light is really bright and it has been on for hours so there are no ghosts in that voltage that I can see.

thank you,

jeanna

darn new camera has a lousy mic. sorry for the lisp!

[Lidmotor]

Like minds think alike

@cosmicfarmer,
Maybe it is what saved your catnip. Corse it could also be schroedinger's cat wanting a nip! But I think it was the HF.

@lidmotor,
I have wanted to make a Dewey of my own for a while.
Now the reasons are very compelling.
This really gives double results for this plant battery.

Are you able to get Dewey to run with just the mag block and copper pipe? I have heard others complain that there are not enough mA.
This is good news.

-----
I made a little video to share a reed switch motor I just made from a kit.
I thought if others were like me with no drill press or good table saw, they might take advantage of this nicely made kit too.
the kit comes from:
Simple Electric Motors | How It Works: Reed Switch Motor

and the video address is:
my vid on the reed switch motor

There is a little aside in the video where I noticed the light shining brightly from a jt secondary. It was an old dump-ready duracell which I recharged today. I was surprised how well it took the charge. The volts rose to 1.76v and that light is really bright and it has been on for hours so there are no ghosts in that voltage that I can see.

thank you,

jeanna

darn new camera has a lousy mic. sorry for the lisp!

Wow Jeanna it amazes me everytime I see someone else take a similar path in learning this stuff. I have been looking at those "Simple Electric Motors" kits for about a year now wondering if I should buy one or not. Now I may have to after watching your video. If you read the whole story about how that project happened it is facinating. It was a science fair project for a high school kid that took on a life of its own and became a business. He got tired of it and now his dad runs it. Those little kits have been sold to people all over the world. What I had in mind was to reconfigure it and maybe make a Bedini out of it or at least grab the back spike on the reed switch version and make a very simple back spike charger. I see no reason why it shouldn't work. A fast switching diode or an LED at the reed switch grabs the back spike.


On the 'Dewey' & 'Phyllis' arrangement the Phiodendron plant battery is driving the JT directly but I do have a 470uf/35v cap in there to help things out. As you found out, a JT circuit can charge another battery while it runs. I still have not decided how best to use the plant battery but now at day (5) I am confidant that we have a winner. The plant is thriving and there is enough metal in there to last a long long time. The cu and mg might need to be periodically pulled out and scrapped. Keeping the soil moist and at the right ph will be the trick. Someone good at growing things would love this project. This plant battery hooked up to 'Hewey' would be the next step. 'Hewey' has supercaps instead of batteries and automatically turns himself on and off like a garden light. 'Hewey' is solar power and hibernated alot during the winter months. 'Phyllis' might just keep him awake and working EVERY night.

This is 'Hewey'

YouTube - Solar Joule Thief HEWEY Boxed


Lidmotor

[jeanna]

Go Phyllis go!


I wondered how long ago this high school project was. It makes sense that his dad is doing the business.
I am really grateful for the well aligned parts. It made it all so easy... and the best part is I have hands on experience with the reed switch motor. Now that I understand that, the rest can follow freely.

Right.
the first plan for today is to wind a secondary on this coil and look at it on the scope.
Ultimately my dream is to have "this board" become a working stubblefield coil. To do that, I would replace the little red coil here with my hand made stubblefield.
This also can tell me quickly if there is something wrong with any of my stubblefield coils.


John Bedini is the one who first showed me the stubblefield information via his website. I know he was very inspired by the man too, as his own inventions used an understanding of all this stuff.

I guess I better not get too far ahead of myself on the plans. Each step will inform the next one, but it is always great to know where I am going. eh?

I noticed you have used a led as diode in some of your videos. I love that idea because you can see right off when it is working.
Maybe if the output is not too high it won't blow the led. I will see, it is a great idea.

thank you,

jeanna

[Lidmotor]

Plant Battery 'Phyllis' ---going strong after a week

@Jeanna & All
'Phyllis' is still doing great after the first week at her new job---making electricity!!!! I hooked her up to the Slayer exciter and my Bobin motor today and made a video of it.

YouTube - Plant Battery, Slayer Exciter, and a Bobin Motor.ASF

Lidmotor

[jeanna]

bobin motor

Wow... that is quite a set-up.

I wanted to see the little motor a little closer.
Do you have a still you could post here?
.... or a link to another vid which shows it up close?

I am so impressed.
Phillis lights her own lights,
all the lights of the sec,
runs the motor,
and turns maggie on too.
this is so great .

And, the plant really looks healthy.
----
I am going to weigh the loss of magnesium in my first couple of plant batteries and give the time relationship for it, if I can.
The mag block is definitely the way to go here, and, my feeling is that if we can actually know how much magnesium is being eaten by this reaction, we can be sure the plant has enough for its own use.

I noticed something with the ribbon the other day.
The ribbon was uniformly narrower than the unplanted source, but there were bites taken out of it which means to me that there was more reaction at some places than at others. So, the battery stopped working when the ribbon broke through, yet there is still a lot of ribbon left.

I am trying to sort this out. It happened with all of them, so it is unlikely to be related to what I added to the soil. It may be just that I wrapped the 2 wires around the peat pot and they were too close to each other at some places.

here is another q...
Do you see any change on the copper surface at all?


thank you,

jeanna

A follow-up on the reed switch motor.
I could see one spike on the scope. I could not get it to move on the screen, and I do know how to move the screen, so I am not too sure what that is about, but I believe the frequency is under 100Hz,
It might take a much lighter and faster motor to make good spikes.
There is more to do here too. In fact it really deserves another motor built from scratch with some movable parts.

[Lidmotor]

Bobin motor and the Plant Battery

@Jeanna
I played with the 'Bobin Motor' all last month and if you go to my channel on Youtube you will see about 7 videos dealing with it. The last version is a reed switch and partial mag-lev thing that is in this last video.

Phyllis dosn't run much directly except a Joule Thief and in this last video she is really just going along for the ride. The AA battery at the pulse motor is really where most of the energy is coming from for the whole combined circuit.
What she is really good at though is endurance and reliability. The part that wears out on her is the chunk of magnesium. The copper might have to be cleaned up from time to time but I am not seeing much consumption there ---yet. If you let her charge up a supercapacitor over a period of time, then Phyllis will give you the amps you need to run most things. Most of Pirate's videos of an earth battery powering things were done that way I think.

Cheers,

Lidmotor

[Aaron]

soil organisms

it is unlikely to be related to what I added to the soil.

In your opinion, what is the main difference between the
EM - effective microorganisms and the mychorrhizal?

Did you order the EM from Japan?