Bedini Earth Light

[ibpointless2]

Enjoyed that read Brad, thanks for posting
Clicking on the link to Page 208 at the bottom of the first page, shows discussion of a home made version of a bacteria cell.
I'd like to run some trials with such a thing....but have no real idea how to build the cell on the workbench. I would imagine the same sort of thing as the pills bottle water cells, with copper and steel electrodes, but, fill the bottle with household waste.
However, any water present in the waste would form a galvanic source of any derived output ?!

Really, I think we want one of these :

Lets build it!

[Sawt2]

thought I would chime in here on the chemalloy battery:
My son and I had made these about 2 and 1/2 years ago, we made 6 individual cells with the chemalloy and carbon welding rods, used the electrolyte that was originally on there website. We had all 6 in series and lit a red led for 109 days, it was starting to crystalize the electrolyte and we wanted to see if there was any deteriation, when we opened them up we found no deteriation at all, only a tiny bit of tarnish on the chemalloy.
I realized the reason for the crystallization was instead of replaced the evaporated electrolyte with plain water I was adding the electrolyte and the salt content got very strong and crystalized.
We recently rebuilt the six cells with chemalloy and copper tubing and same electrolyte, only this time as it evaporates we only put distilled water in them and it seems to be doing very well for 81 days. It will lite the led with all six in series but we decided to try it 3 and 3 in series then put those 2 groups in paralel and it lights ultra bright white led very nicely.(real bright)
there dosen't appear to be any deteriation. About every 10 to 15 days just another squirt of water keeps the light on. We are attempting to make a bunch of these with hopes of running a small bedini energizer off of them.
Brian

[ibpointless2]

thought I would chime in here on the chemalloy battery:
My son and I had made these about 2 and 1/2 years ago, we made 6 individual cells with the chemalloy and carbon welding rods, used the electrolyte that was originally on there website. We had all 6 in series and lit a red led for 109 days, it was starting to crystalize the electrolyte and we wanted to see if there was any deteriation, when we opened them up we found no deteriation at all, only a tiny bit of tarnish on the chemalloy.
I realized the reason for the crystallization was instead of replaced the evaporated electrolyte with plain water I was adding the electrolyte and the salt content got very strong and crystalized.
We recently rebuilt the six cells with chemalloy and copper tubing and same electrolyte, only this time as it evaporates we only put distilled water in them and it seems to be doing very well for 81 days. It will lite the led with all six in series but we decided to try it 3 and 3 in series then put those 2 groups in paralel and it lights ultra bright white led very nicely.(real bright)
there dosen't appear to be any deteriation. About every 10 to 15 days just another squirt of water keeps the light on. We are attempting to make a bunch of these with hopes of running a small bedini energizer off of them.
Brian

Where did you get the chemalloy?

[Sawt2]

Where did you get the chemalloy?

There use to be a guy online that sold it but his website store is no longer working. Not sure where you might get it now.
There is a "version" of at Harbor Freight here in the U.S. of A. Haven't tried it but it's cheap enough that when I run out of the Chemalloy I might try it.

[Allwest]

Where did you get the chemalloy?

Ib,

You can get it at a welding shop, it is an aluminum welding rod

I used other rods for welding aluminum and it works the same as Chemalloy


Best....

[Lidmotor]

Aluminum welding rod

There use to be a guy online that sold it but his website store is no longer working. Not sure where you might get it now.
There is a "version" of at Harbor Freight here in the U.S. of A. Haven't tried it but it's cheap enough that when I run out of the Chemalloy I might try it.

Is this the right stuff?

Aluminum Welding Rods - Pack of 8 Alumiweld Rods

This sound like a cell we should all try.

Lidmotor

[Slider2732]

With the belief that aluminium immediately oxidizes in the air and becomes practically useless, i've avoided any trials in cells. So, the presumtion is there must be something else in the rods (if they are correct).
Very interesting indeed

I've just found an aluminium heatsink that can be snipped up and tried out, so will verify output without the special whatever it is.

(a few minutes later)
In a simple tap water cell:
Galv steel and copper electrodes produced 0.945V, 0.7mA
Aluminium and copper 0.745V, 135uA
Aluminium and galv steel 0.280V, 9uA (polarity reversed)

Aluminium from a heatsink produces far less than galvanized steel, but, if the electrode never deteriorates then maybe it's a readily usable metal that's been overlooked.
Such a configuration will run what I already normally use such water cells for, long term LED oscillator running !

Just kinda interesting to see what regular aluminium will do.
Here's it is, now on test on a 'Penny' type oscillator, with regular copper (non burnt). Flash rate approx 5Hz and a little brighter than the instant caught in the pic

[ibpointless2]

Is this the right stuff?

Aluminum Welding Rods - Pack of 8 Alumiweld Rods

This sound like a cell we should all try.

Lidmotor

Hi Lidmotor,

I found this to some good reading material about chemalloy batteries. Nu EnergyTM Sodium Chloride Ion-valve Technology

This was pulled from the text. "We don't know how long a chemalloy battery will last. One cell was disassembled after powering a light emitting diode for 2,000 hours (over 84 days). It showed no sign of decay and could have continued to power the light emitting diode. The same light emitting diode powered with two store bought AAA cells remained lit for only 60 hours (2.5 days)."

So they seem like they will run for a long time.


Also I don't think modern day aluminum welding rods are the same as the original chemalloy rods due to that chemalloy originally had lead in it. Lead is being removed from modern solder.


@all

I can't believe this made the news. OS:Stephen Dickens Magnesium-Water-Copper Battery - PESWiki

Its a simple water battery that they're claiming will run for almost forever. The statement is that since they only use water the magnesium won't corrode but in fact its the water that corrodes the magnesium. They also are claiming that Stephen Dickens is the inventor when clearly Luigi Galvani is the inventor, Galvani had the effect named after him. I really don't know what to think or do now.

[b_rads]

Is this the right stuff?

Aluminum Welding Rods - Pack of 8 Alumiweld Rods

This sound like a cell we should all try.

Lidmotor

@all:
Concerning the Chemalloy or Aluminum Welding Rods, refer to this page for the Filler Metal Information (the materials that constitute the alloy). Scroll down part way till you get to “Aluminum Filler Metal Information:.”
I am looking at 4043 and 5356 alloys. Notice that Silicon, Iron, Copper, Manganese, Magnesium, Zinc, Titanium, and Chromium (5356 only) are the elements used in these alloys. Look and see how many of these elements have semiconductor properties. Another site refers to the 4043 alloy as one of the oldest Aluminum alloys used in welding.
Thinking out loud – Knowing that copper oxides were one of the first depolarizers used in battery building, it warrants consideration that if copper is used as one of the electrodes, pretreating it with the oxide should be considered.
Nick; while this might be partially galvanic, it could also be the semiconductor battery you have been looking for.

Brad S

[NickZ]

Brad, and All:
Great info that you've mentioned about the aluminum alloys, and Chemalloy. Worth trying! I'll see if I can at least find the current welding rods that are used here.

I've mentioned previously that I have been using aluminum and activated carbon for my cells for a while now, months. All my cells are aluminum/C, But, as Slider also has shown, they only put out about a volt or less, and not the 1.6 volts as is stated in Chemalloy tests. This higher output needs to be confirmed, maybe it's true.
Although my cells reach 75mA, and most start at around 50-70mAs, then drop somewhat in time. The current levels are totally dependent of the surface area of the carbon electrolyte, and size of the Al tubes.
My aluminum tubes are made from some kind of alloy also, and are additionally anodized with a clear coating to protect them from oxidation.
I use them because they are free and available to me, and they do work well. But an additional cell needs to be used like 4 cells instead of 3, to make up for their lower voltage output. My oscillators work fine even with one of these cells at about 0.65 volts, loaded, as these cells do have some fairly good current to them, and that is what the oscillators need, and not much voltage.
Just one of my cells has more current than the solar cells that come in the garden lights, and work even better than a single solar cells on an oscillator.
The solar garden light cells that I use output are 4.2 volts and 30mAs.
And of course the homemade cells will work day and night 24/7, and are already months old of daily or nightly use running night lights, and oscillators.
As all of these kinds of cells are of low output, they also need to be low cost, or they will not be cost effective to use. Compare to the 12 cents for 7 weeks running that Brad is kindly telling us about.
Aluminum and carbon are both almost free, and available most anywhere in the world. I also use beach sand which is nearby and is as free as it gets.
The borax treatment of the aluminum may help, but it is something that I have not tried. Maybe someone can let me know how borax or other semiconductor layer treatments has worked on the aluminum for you.

Brad: I've now made an new oscillator core using the #28 wire, 18 winds, (two separate winds), L1 and L2 , on a small 1/2" ferrite toroid that comes in the CFL bulbs. So, this is similar to what you've shown, and this is to try to replicate the results that you've gotten on the LS low draw oscillator. I'm now just waiting for new 2n2222 transistors to be delivered today, and will let you know how it all goes with the new set up, which I am very hopeful about.

[Sawt2]

Is this the right stuff?

Aluminum Welding Rods - Pack of 8 Alumiweld Rods

This sound like a cell we should all try.

Lidmotor

That is the stuff from harbor freight. I have not personally tried that but it does seem similar and inexpensive enough to try.
I found an address for the guy that I bought the chemalloy from, I am going to try to contact him and see if he will tell me where to buy it from.
I'll keep you posted once I know something
Brian

[Slider2732]

A couple of things piqued my interest in the previous posts.
Not least of which was that incredibly odd posting on PesWiki. Perhaps it's not so odd when considering this line "The assembly is immersed in water (with no added electrolyte)". Errrrm yeah, quite
Also, "Every 9 months or so, the magnesium rod and copper wire should be briefly sanded to remove build-up", well no surprise there either, that's what Brad and myself at least have been doing, periodically removing what would STOP the cells from working and would do with this chaps 'creation'.
I'm all for getting the info out there and practical use made of it - but not claiming it as novel or ones own !
(Same thing with SEFE and their corporate investor stylized radiant collector. Which, is tempered by at least being seemingly USA based and wishing to make a really good go of Tesla's multiple Patented but non mentioned or cited related work).

Also of note, borax with aluminium, dunno how I missed that one within the pages. I don't have any presently, but will put a piece of burnt copper in another setup like the above pic and run that too.

[Lidmotor]

Alloys

Just a quick note. I have been doing some research on chemalloy and the aluminum welding rod. That led me to all kinds of alloys using zinc and aluminum. Zamak of all things and plain old "pot metal" are interesting also because of the alloys used. I wonder if Brad is right about perhaps semi-conductor qualities when all these things are mixed up in the soup. This is worth looking into more. I'll see if I can pick up a piece of that welding rod this afternoon at the local welding shop.

Lidmotor

[Allwest]

Just a quick note. I have been doing some research on chemalloy and the aluminum welding rod. That led me to all kinds of alloys using zinc and aluminum. Zamak of all things and plain old "pot metal" are interesting also because of the alloys used. I wonder if Brad is right about perhaps semi-conductor qualities when all these things are mixed up in the soup. This is worth looking into more. I'll see if I can pick up a piece of that welding rod this afternoon at the local welding shop.

Lidmotor

Lid,

You can still get Chemalloy at the welding shop, my shop did not have any in at the time and would have had to order it, So I picked up an Aluminum welding rod, they said it was made up of the same thing

You can get a reading from the rod and water, the interesting part it that no matter how small the piece of rod is, it still has the same volts

Just using aluminum does not act the same

Best....

[Allwest]

How about oil and graphite powder mix.. No water in oil to decay the negative cathode

vintasalo,

I have not tried this, looks interesting though

I think you can put graphite powder in almost anything

I am going to pickup some powder this weekend