Earth Battery SG

[Lidmotor]

Plant Battery circuits

@All
I worked with several different circuits over the weekend trying to find the best to use the energy coming out of the Plant Battery. The quest has led me forwards and backwards. I will try your Fuji Camera circuit next Kazam and see what happens.
@Jeanna----I was sorry to hear that your experiment while camping didn't work. I quess that answers the question: " Does a Plant Battery glow in the woods?" I am beginning to think (like you) that the placement of the electrodes in relation to the root system might be important. On 'Phyllis' the copper and Mg are opposite each other with the plant in the middle. The Phlidendron is growing like mad and still producing about 1.25 volts. Early on I replanted it into a larger pot. I added some additional potting soil (no idea what kind) that I had. That might account for the fast growth rather than the battery action. I just don't know.
@Morpher44----There was a guy on Youtube that put a bunch of metal sheets in his attic and drove a metal post in his yard---then got a current between the two. That might be the same thing that you are taliking about.

Lidmotor

[ren]

Hi Guys and Girls,

I recently revisited the SEC 15 unit I played around with and I got it to function in a pure wireless mode. I posted some basic details on the HV from thin air thread for those that are interested.

Also, thanks to Jeanna for that NS induction coil vid she linked, looks super cool. I think I am going to try one out. How did yours turn out Jeanna?

Got some magnesium on the way too. Decided to wirelessly light up some LEDs and place them in one of my bonsai's. Using the Stiffler tower SEC/15, but would be so cool if I could wirelessly light them from the Earth battery alone!

Good stuff .

Regards

[jeanna]

update plant battery #4 and more thoughts on #1

OK
Maybe I went off the deep end today, but I see no other explanation.
First, here is the story:

Plant Battery #4 went together on Apr 10th.
The mag ribbon was all on one side of the plant and the copper wire was all on the other side.
It was never very strong, but it worked, and I used a red led on the secondary for the light.

On day #10 which was Apr 20, the red led started to pulse. It went out, then one second later it went on pretty bright and stayed on for 20 seconds then went out again. I fiddled a little but not much because really, I just wanted to see what is going on without changing anything.
So, today day #12 with the light still pulsing about like before, I took out the soil on the side with the magnesium ribbon. The ribbon is nearly gone!
There seems to be only a couple of 2 inch pieces left from 20 inches to start. ??

OK so far that is right.
The action of the battery ate the ribbon.
But why was it even pulsing?
The piece at the top where it connects to the clip is about 2 inches long.

I promise you that 2 inches is NOT enough magnesium ribbon to keep this pulse going.

So, the best candidate for the explanation is that the river of ions is continuing to flow in the soil even in the absence of any ribbon.
Once it is directed, it continues.
Next time, I think I better weigh the dolomite I put in there.

I guess a good test to negatively test this river idea right now, would be to return the soil (river randomized) and add the 2 inch piece under the clip and see if it starts the flash sequence again.

Instead, I am going to let the soil get very dry and fish out all the bits of mag ribbon I can find to weigh them to see how much got used to run a joule thief for 12 days.
- - - -
Next piece:

In the plant battery #1 this same thing may have happened.
On Apr 7th, which was day #12, It stopped working = not even a flash.
I saw that there was only a 5 inch piece of ribbon attached to the clip, I reattached the clip more at the end and , I returned it to the soil where it had been, and the 2 lights went on again for another week or so and went out again.
On Apr 14, I added a fresh piece of mag ribbon about 5 inches to the area where the old one was and the lights went on again. That was Apr 14th and today is Apr 22, 8 days later, and both lights are still on.

All I needed to do was refresh the piece of electrode that was sticking out of the soil and the whole battery started to work again.
I wonder how many times I can just add a 5 inch piece of mag ribbon for this battery to continue?

-----------How does this sound?--------------------

Maybe I am making a magnesium-copper battery with dolomite as the permanent electrode, but the dolomite must first be "trained" with the presence of the ribbon. When the ribbon has dissolved, the magnesium in the dolomite is enough to continue the current production and the 'battery' only needs a short piece of mg ribbon as connection point.

[ Lasersaber got well over 100mA from 100 feet of mg and 300 ft of copper in his side yard. the implications are pretty interesting, I think.]


@lidmotor,
It is pretty interesting that the outside earth battery did not perform, but I am realizing now that it really was not a plant battery. there was not a plant in between the electrodes.
In fact there was not any plant around it and the soil had been disturbed by the clearing action of the excavator. All the living plants were heaped in a pile nearby, and I had just planted the quince but it was a foot away.
I think this is more important than I did even when I called this a plant battery in the beginning.
So, I will go back armed with more ribbon, some dolomite and a plant for the center.

thank you,

jeanna

ps lidmotor,
I have a control for the replanting with fresh soil.
Plant Battery #1 uses 1/2 of what was originally a potbound plant.
I repotted both halves, and yes, they are both happier, but the one supporting the battery is growing more and has shinier thicker leaves.
Out of 6 or 7 new leaves, there are 2 leaves that seem a little distorted. They are shiny and thick, but crooked. I will look that up.*
I know the philodendron likes to dry out before being watered which is not happening here.

* OK the only thing I found was the relationship between fertilizer and watering and more light which moves the water through the plant, so, since there is plenty of the minerals named, I might need more light. This plant might be getting too much water and the best way to regulate that without allowing it to dry out is to give it more light. Hmm this is a balance.

[Lidmotor]

Plant Battery---a balancing act

@Jeanna
My plant battery is still going strong. I started it on April 1st. I'm still running the 'Phyllis Inverter' LED circuit on it and today added an automatic on/off feature by adding a phototransitor in the circuit. I see no deterioration in the philodendron plant but I'm sure that the mg chunk in the soil is slowly dissolving. I will pull it out at the end of the month and see what it looks like.

I agree with you that this idea works as long as you keep everything in balance. I am treating "Phyllis" like any other house plant ---enough light and just enough water to keep the soil slightly moist. She puts out about 1.25 volts 24/7. You shold be able to tell from the video the condition of the plant.

[Lidmotor]

Plant Battery---a balancing act

@Jeanna
My plant battery is still going strong. I started it on April 1st. I'm still running the 'Phyllis Inverter' LED circuit on it and today added an automatic on/off feature by adding a phototransitor in the circuit. I see no deterioration in the philodendron plant but I'm sure that the mg chunk in the soil is slowly dissolving. I will pull it out at the end of the month and see what it looks like.

I agree with you that this idea works as long as you keep everything in balance. I am treating "Phyllis" like any other house plant ---enough light and just enough water to keep the soil slightly moist. She puts out about 1.25 volts 24/7. You should be able to tell from the video the condition of the plant.

YouTube - Plant Battery Light with Auto on-off.ASF

Lidmotor

[jeanna]

That is a perfect video!
It pulls so much of it together.

I wonder if you made a 20 inch line of magnesium ribbon between the block and the clip, if you would get enough more mA to run this both forever and without blinks.

I will try that next week.
First I want to weigh the ribbon so I can say how much it used for the hours it has been on.
(then plant some more around the quince if I get to the camper this weekend. If not...)

So, is your phyllis light on for 8 hours a night?

This is so great!

jeanna

[Lidmotor]

'Phyllis' work schedule

That is a perfect video!
It pulls so much of it together.

I wonder if you made a 20 inch line of magnesium ribbon between the block and the clip, if you would get enough more mA to run this both forever and without blinks.

I will try that next week.
First I want to weigh the ribbon so I can say how much it used for the hours it has been on.
(then plant some more around the quince if I get to the camper this weekend. If not...)

So, is your phyllis light on for 8 hours a night?

This is so great!

jeanna

I had her running the light ALL the time day and night until yesterday. Now during daylight hours the circuit partially shuts down and the supercap can fill up. When it gets dark the circuit opens up again and the LEDs come on. I will have to let this run for a few days to see how this works out. I would rather use a timer chip on it that limits it to just 6 hours run time a night.

The real question right now is how to keep the battery working and the plant happy. I have the mg ribbon and will work some more with it but so far my experience is like yours as far as it dissolving too fast. Your idea about the plant and soil supplying the ion exchange and the mg ribbon being like the catalysis is interesting. I wish Phyllis could talk---I would just ask her.

Oh are we having some fun now! This just gets better and better.

Lidmotor

[minoly]

Microbial Fuel Cell

Have you all have read up on this stuff:

www.microbialfuelcell.org - Home
and
Microbial fuel cell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Do you think the "plant battery is much different than this? aside from the magnesium - awesome find! http://www.energeticforum.com/images.../notworthy.gif
minoly

[jeanna]

...

The real question right now is how to keep the battery working and the plant happy. I have the mg ribbon and will work some more with it but so far my experience is like yours as far as it dissolving too fast. Your idea about the plant and soil supplying the ion exchange and the mg ribbon being like the catalysis is interesting. ...

Lidmotor

@lidmotor,
Have you been adding any dolomite to the soil?
I think this might be an important part in something.
It seems to be disappearing too, so without it, I suspect the ribbon could dissolve faster.

maybe? It seems worth checking,
--------
I am starting to see a pattern suggesting better ways to make this with the ribbon.

The first one I made has 60 inches of each mag and copper wires spiraled around each other and the plant.

Since then I have been making them with 20 inches of each and looking at the different outputs with merely different placements of the wires.
They all seemed to last for the same amount of time but made different amounts of amps.
The worst performer in the planter was with the 2 wires on opposite sides. The best performer had a spiral of each wire circling the plant.

Today I made one (#6) with the same 20 inches of copper wire, but with 30 inches of magnesium.
The copper makes one complete circle around the plant and the mag ribbon makes 1 1/2 turns around the plant.
I added a drizzle of magnesium to the top of the soil and did NOT add any EM. (However, I am re-using the soil from last week's planter #4.)

This took off from the get go.
As soon as I made the wire connection the red light went on and is very bright.
And, 3mA seem to be generated at the usual 1.2-1.6v.
The light is steady and bright and is coming from the "pickup secondary" of the joule thief circuit.

If this is as good as the rest with the sprial, this should last "as is" for about a week, so I will let you all know.

I keep trying to make a video, but my camera is not cooperating, so verbal is all I have for the moment. So sorry.

jeanna

[jeanna]

Have you all have read up on this stuff:

www.microbialfuelcell.org - Home
and
Microbial fuel cell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Do you think the "plant battery is much different than this? aside from the magnesium - awesome find! http://www.energeticforum.com/images.../notworthy.gif
minoly

Hi Minoly,
Thanks for that link.
It looks very rich. (lots of chemistry knowledge and intellect involved.)
They are also dealing with waste sludge.
I am grateful for it, and for the fact that they are doing it.
I like the more simple planter test tube for myself.
Anyone can do this.

I think it might be similar, and on a different scale.
What is becoming clear here is that the plant seems to be both helping and getting help from the system.
Getting help was easy to predict.
For me the surprise is that the plant seems to be helping the process.
When I first made it, I called it a 'plant battery' as a word play. It seems that it is truly a plant battery.

Are you making one of these too?
Watch out! they tend to take over the house.

jeanna

edit add
The wiki article added a lot that does seem to make this the same.
Theremart has a thread where he is using compost to make energy, I think too.

this is a cool subject. It is wonderful to see there are mainstreamers working with it. Thanks for bringing it up!

[Lidmotor]

A Plant Battery SG??

@ Jeanna & Aaron
Jeanna your latest Plant Battery might just run my 'Bobin Bedini'. It will run on 1.5 volts at 3mA. I have been trying to get it to run on 'Phyllis but I just can't get enough amperage. I think that the problem is that there has to be enough surface area of metal to get the needed power out of just one Plant Battery. Sooooo---- I guess I will have to build one like you did. That would be really cool if it worked because John's SSG circuit has that wonderful charging capability.

@Aaron---Your thread here was designed to examine the earth battery and an SG connection and I have always thought that John intended the the two to go together.

Here is a video that I made awhile back of my 'Bobin Bedini' running on the low power. It is running on one AA at 3mA. The pickup coil ('Maggie') shows the work being done while this is running which has always been an issue with the SSG. The circuit being used is just an SG type as the back spike is not being used for charging here. I called this video "World of Wonder" because this whole subject matter to me is ---a wonder.

YouTube - Bobin Bedin---A world of wonder.ASF

Lidmotor

[jeanna]

led color evidence so far...

Hi everybody,

I finally got one of my rediculus cameras to work!
Here is a short video that shows the crink I am seeing.

thanks for watching!

@Lidmotor,
Oh that is what I have been trying to do as well.
I could not get the reedswitch motor to work, of course, but I tried anyway..

I think I can find a sewing machine bobbin...
Maybe while I replicate your bobbin motor, you can replicate my Plant battery #6.

I'll race you to the first buoy!

jeanna

[Aaron]

earth rod and sg's

@Aaron---Your thread here was designed to examine the earth battery and an SG connection and I have always thought that John intended the the two to go together.

Lidmotor,

If you look at the early schoolgirl schematics from 10 years ago, you can
see that always showed a specific earth ground separate from a regular
negative ground. I'm talking about the "pitchfork" symbol and not the
horizontal lines that are perpendicular to the line.

This is part of my post from 6-30-2008 in this very thread - first page.
Not a full earth battery but for starters, just a ground rod, it makes the
sg's run stronger.

Bedini SG Grounding Schematics
From the beginning, John has shown that you can ground the sg to the earth. Look carefully at:
http://www.esmhome.org/library/john-...-bedini-sg.jpg
http://www.esmhome.org/library/john-...bedini-sg2.jpg

Below pic is what I'm pointing out:


Unfortunately, most people haven't paid much attention to these details.

[Lidmotor]

Boosting power on the Plant Battery

@Aaron---Thanks for reposting that here. I have studied those diagrams over and over trying to figure out why he did that and I am beginning to understand why. There is more going on in his designs than first meets the eye.
I followed Jeanna's tips and did an experiment using more metal placed in bowl of tap water and got my little 'Bobin Bedin' to run on the power. The next step would be to put the metal coil in the potted plant. The final experiment would be to put the whole thing in the ground outside. Surface area is important in getting the amperage out of the battery.
Here is a video of the experiment today:

YouTube - Plant Battery---How to boost power.ASF

Lidmotor

[jeanna]

more metal.

Great video Lidmotor!


In my search for the limits of things I started with 60 inches of each wire. That was plant battery 1, It gave me between 6 and 8 mA.
Today I used 20 inches of copper and 30 inches of magnesium. This gives 3.6mA

Both of these needed to have the wires circling around the plant's roots.
So, if you are (probably as I type this) making a spiral of 25 feet each of copper and magnesium, you should get 30mA or more from that much wire.

[This might even be enough to run one of those bedini's that uses a big transistor.
If I remember right, lasersaber got over 60mA and was aiming for 100mA when the first snow fell this winter. ]

It is sooo stunning that the itty bitty bobin bedini works with phyllis. I betcha you don't need any more than 30 inches of magnesium and 20 inches of copper wire, AND, with the mag block and copper pipe appended to the ends, you may have a very long runner too!

Oh this is sooo cool.

@Aaron,
I am with lidmotor. Thanks for reposting those pics.
The bobbin bedini and the reedswitch and plant battery are all really close to the stubblefield generator which was to some extent an inspiration to bedini, it all belongs together. Thanks,


jeanna