Tourmaline as a energy source

[Cherryman]

@Cherryman - the way I would do it (if the bit I had was anywhere near as big as your's) would be to get my soldering iron out, heat up a bit of solder and drop it onto the crystal - crude but should work.

Couple of questions for you:
- Have you hooked the crystal to a multimeter?
- Does it feel warm?

. . . .




@DrewryMedia - it looks to be mined in a lot of different places. One key maybe: what mine areas produce crystals which exhibit the properties we seek/want.

@Savy:

I bought it just today as i went with my daughter to a small museum of nature. I choose the most black one because i did read due to this topic somewhere (Aromaz) wrote that black ones are most "electrical". They charged three euro! ;-)
I looked it up just now, it seems to be of the : SCHORL type : SCHORL (complex Sodium Iron Boro-Aluminum Silicate)

There a many different types of Tourmalin, its a "group" of stones.
Some interesting info here:

Amethyst Galleries - TOURMALINE GROUP

As for finding places try wikipedia.

Regarding your questions:

My multimeter died, i try to get a new one this week.
The stone feels cold.

[citizensnips]

To connect to a crystal just touch it at opposite ends with your multi meter probes.

[Nick_Z]

It may also help to use two very small pieces of wet foam or sponge or tissue paper, on the two areas where the meter probes are going to test on.

Nick_Z

[R.E.Craig]

I've done a quick search of the whole forum and there are only 4 threads that mention Tourmaline - but none cover how one could use Tourmaline crystals as an energy source.

Over at rexresearch is the following page: tourmaline

Tom Bearden, on his site covers how a couple of groups have created "solar cells" which incase lots of tiny tourmaline crystals to harvest their output and convert it to electricity. It's an interesting idea but seams really complicated to make.

I then found the following interesting statement over at ionizers.org/tourmaline.html

The bit that caught my eye is the 0.06mA. Surely it couldn't be as simple as getting a whole bunch of crystals and connecting them up as if they were batterys.

I originally was going to state that I didn't have a Tourmaline crystal laying around (and was going to get some off of ebay), but when I went looking at my rock collection I noticed a bag with a couple of chips in it (about the size of the fingernail of your little pinkie), it looks like someone that I had order from included it for free.

Anyway I got out my multi meter and started probing - total result after a while: nothing
I tried both chips, then all the other tiny bits that broke off.

I then tried a crazy idea I came up with, which was to place a piece of the crystal into a bit of water and see what I could pick up. So I got some distilled water and a small plastic cap and placed the largest of the pieces I have, into the water.

I got some voltage fluctuations, to see if it was really coming from the chip - I placed the probes on my tongue and it also fluctuated. I'm guessing that there is still a trace amount of salts in the distilled water which is shorting the meter. To test this I put the probes into a bit of the distilled water, which was in different cap with nothing else and got the same fluctuations. I then added some salt water and the fluctuations just got a bit bigger.

For all the water tests, I didn't see any amp readings.

So it's back to the drawing board, next step would be to cover a couple of areas to have some real contact with the crystal.

I should also get some other pieces of Tourmaline, as what I have was labeled as tourmaline but may not in fact be tourmaline.

Getting some infrared "solar" cells to see if they could pickup the crystal infrared output, would be another area to try.

Anyone have any other ideas?

There are two main ways to extract electrical energy from Tourmaline. The first is to apply heat as the mineral is a pyroelectric crystal, heat causes deformations within the internal lattice of the crystal causing it to generate voltage. Tourmaline is also piezoelectric, meaning that it will also generate a voltage when subject to pressure. A single load applied will initially generate voltage and then nothing! When you remove the load, again you will see a voltage across the crystal and then nothing! In order to generate a continuous voltage the crystal must be subject to a continuous alternating pressure wave. This can be mechanical pressure or even sound waves, you can even apply a voltage to the crystal and it will "flex" in unison with the frequency of the current.
I have posted a link to a book which is very useful and essential reading for anyone with an interest in crystallography.

Piezoelectricity : Cady, Walter Guyton : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive