Bedini Earth Light

[b_rads]

Lead Plate and Alum Cell Replication

This is my replication of Lidmotors lead and alum cell.

Lead Plate and Alum Cell Demonstration

This was a fun cell to replicate - thanks Lidmotor

Brad S

[Lidmotor]

Replications

This is my replication of Lidmotors lead and alum cell.

Lead Plate and Alum Cell Demonstration

This was a fun cell to replicate - thanks Lidmotor

Brad S

Brad ---You cell turned out good! It is always nice when someone can replicate what you did and verify your findings. The important aspect of that experiment was to prove that this Alum / Lead cell does work without the cell having first had sulfuric acid in it. Some people were claiming that the full size battery "conversions" were only working because the battery plates had already been exposed to the strong acid during factory forming and that some acid was still in there. John B., others, you, and I have now shown that a "virgin" cell can be formed with just the lead, Alum, and distilled water.

@All
I made a "sandwich" type cell like Slider and John B. did and it worked very well. I used a highly absorbant "felt" like material as the seperator and electrolyte holder. It is a synthetic drying towel material of some kind like the "Sham Wow" product. I put the assembled cell (yes I used rubberbands) into a small plastic bag like Slider did to retain the moisture. This is almost like the SLA that we are all used to. It isn't air tight sealed but the absorbant material retains the electrolyte so well --nothing spills out.

Lidmotor

PS----I am having excellent luck with the "linotype" lead material. Here is the link to the Ebay supplier. The pieces make great cell plates. There are enough pieces there to make many many batteries.

Linotype Lead - 10 lbs For Reloading, or melting into ingots | eBay

[John_Bedini]

Alum battery

Brad,
Have you run any charts on this cell it would be good to see the curve of this cell after it charges and discharges a few times.Good video and nice cell. Great replication.
John B

This is my replication of Lidmotors lead and alum cell.

Lead Plate and Alum Cell Demonstration

This was a fun cell to replicate - thanks Lidmotor

Brad S

[b_rads]

Charge and Discharge

@John, Lidmotor, Slider, and all:

I have not charted this cell. Just an observation though – when discharging – and this I noticed when powering the fan since the run time is much shorter:
The voltage holds at 1.4 volts approximately while the cell can deliver between 20 and 30mA. Once the current drops below the 20mA (approx 90% of run time) the voltage crashes. I can then put this cell on a blocking oscillator and it will pop back up the 1.5 volts approx and run at the voltage until the current drops below about 1/2mA and then the voltage crashes again. As long as the cell can produce the current that the load requires, the voltage remains stable.

Another thing that I have noticed is that run time is not linear to charge time. It appears that a quick charge will deliver nearly as much run time as a much longer charge. This is an anomaly that needs to be documented and verified. Much more can be explored to find the best charging method for these builds.

Brad S

[Slider2732]

@Brad - I concur, the rapid charging was seen in one of Jonh's vids recently and your data supports my own findings too. Almost a quick blip of charge will bring the cell back to doing useful work. I expected to see linear charging, the voltage rising as current goes in as well...but the indicators are that the impedance mismatch is what we are seeing in the rapid ability to charge.
I'm new to impedance, but am now 43, so it will probably factor with age lol

In some cells it will all be normal, but I think we are so used to seeing energy in = energy out and the time constants being always a linear expected line, that this catches us unawares. My 'cellphone' sandwich type appears not to gain much by remaining on charge for anything over 10 minutes. Charge is 200mA, 2V. All will, of course, equate out with the load and natural losses of the cell, but that rapid charge ability is something of a bonus

[John_Bedini]

Lead Alum

Brad, Lidmotor, Slider

I'm posting another video over on the Energy Science Forum, will be up soon. The impedance of the cell is very important in this application. I think what you guys are saying is that your at the limit of the chemical charge. This is the same thing that will happen to a Lead Acid battery. Anything after the chemical reaches saturation is just going to waste. If someone would sit and work the chemical formula you could see what is going on with the sulphates in the cell. This process almost works like a Lead Acid Cell. It was also found that spacing of the plates is very important. When using used battery plates it's important that the lead oxide is reversed to change the chemical back to sponge lead. This is not your ordinary storage battery impedance wise. I'm still working on the chemical formula and it's strange.
John B

[Lidmotor]

Progress report

@ John B., Slider, Brad, & All

I took a side trip and built the "Cat Exciter" that Slider showed running on his Lead-Alum battery. I got mine working and here is the video of it.

Homemade Lead-Alum cell powering an Exciter - YouTube

@John B.
That latest rechargeable crystal cell you made is a amazing. Your video showing it powering that motor while you charted the discharge curve was great. The way that these cells charge and discharge is sure different that anything else that I have seen.

Lidmotor

[Allwest]

Mixing with lead

To all working with the lead cells

Just playing around with mixing other metals with melted lead

Interesting results

I mixed mag filings with melted lead for neg

and copper filing for pos

also I mixed some rock salt throughout the melted lead mix, this gives it a sponge like appearance, once the rock salt is washed out, leaving tiny holes through out the lead plate

It acts like the mag copper cells, with the added benefit of charging capabilities

Best of luck

[DadHav]

John Hav,
If you get a big one you will do back flips. Everybody is just goofing around with small devices. but if you start to get into the 24 Amp Hr range things will change. The reason for the food grade Alum is simple anything else and you will start to eat the active material on the plates. Epsom Salts is just good one time.Sodium Sulphate will soften the material on the plates and it soon will fall off. Using detergent and tap water will cause the plates to not take a charge as all the active material is dissolved away, the minerals and the chlorine in tap water is very damaging to the plates. The battery works two ways with Sulphuric Acid as a normal Lead Acid Battery or with Food Grade Alum or Ammonium Aluminum Sulfate.

The salt (Ammonium Aluminum Sulfate) is a very good Ionic compound and works very well for ionic transfer, just a little research will point that out. Again I will point out the two different impedances that take place. The impedance is high under charging so current is less. Under load the impedance is very much lower so current is available, My charts do not lie in the video as I have done this many times. Taking a dry Battery off the shelf is the test, and I did that on video and I'm going to do it again. You can lead people to the water but you can not make them drink. In all my years with batteries this one along with the copper magnesium Cell perform the best for current with shifting impedance. Most are unsuccessful because they use junk batteries, junk batteries do not perform, the old saying Junk in Junk out.

This is not Voodoo it's just the way chemistry works in the cells. If you think the store dry charge battery is hard to do try a 1951 Willard battery that has never been formed, that is on video too.

Hi John, it's just me personally but I always feel I need to start with the least expensive resources I have and then work up. I'm learning already with the small cell. As a matter of fact I have some tests that might surprise everyone when I finally get my head wrapped around what I'm seeing. I know you mentioned this is new to everyone yet and we all have to report our experiences. I think the mixture in my little cell is off because of the way I dissolved the alum. Instead of a mix that was completely dissolved or gelled crystals from just the right amount of water, I ended up with a saturated solution with a gelatinous precipitate. When I filled the battery I was getting as much of the precipitate as saturated water. So I think I have mostly a battery with aluminum hydroxide Al(OH)3 around the plates. I wonder if this could be true and why I'm experiencing a slightly higher voltage. I've only had a few hours for experimenting then had to leave town but I'll be back later today to experiment more. I have used a stator motor with a feedback to the battery as a load. Ha, some very unique results. Will report later.
Still can't get the vision of the guts being torn out of the Willard battery out of my mind.
John Hav

[mikrovolt]

it is encouraging to see different ideas. compare and contrast
the entholpy idea brings a few ideas to mind.
I had some half baked ideas about ordering field structure
The polyacrylate has an absorbing and expanding nature
that interacts outside a closed system like an induction field. Unlike a magnetic field the water gets stretched possibly forming a negative resistance.
The tendency of a permanent magnet to align itself to an induced field can
be visualized but alignment of the fields of crystal cells and how they are positioned what may be happening outside the cells may have some unanswered questions.
I recall a video on a phenomena where distance made a difference and
might give some clue to the ordering outside reflects something different going on inside this type of cell or how it might order as an open system.
strange effects with powercells - YouTube

[DadHav]

Graphing Softare.

Hello John, All. I know small cells aren't as exciting a big ones but I have to say I'm impressed with the small conversion and it takes a lot to impress me. First let me ask before I have everyone sleeping again: Does anyone have recommendations for graphing software? I have Eagle Tree but it's not good for testing smaller currents. I was ready for some video but I wanted to do more than light up light bulbs. Listen though. I must have done something wrong because I'm getting to much voltage. I know: There must have still been acid in the battery. I can't believe that's what it is. The battery is only 1.3 ah and was a sealed lead acid. It doesn't use much more that 1-2 ounces of electrolyte. I put a tube in each cell and attached it to the faucet and ran water in for an hour on each cell. I then switched to Baking Soda and water and used a big 2 ounce syringe to force about a quart of water into the cells while rinsing. I then left the cells over night with the baking soda. Then I pressure rinsed about another gallon of distilled watter through the cells. I did not reverse charge the battery. Maybe I should have but the battery charges to 16.5 volts then rests to about 12.4. After running some loads for an hour or so the resting voltage is more like 12.2 I have charged this battery over night three times now at 50-100 ma and ran tests the entire next day with current draws as high as 250 ma. At 250 ma the battery will stabilize at about 11.8 volts and hold there for a nice slow discharge rate. I never had this current density when the battery was new. Not to mention the battery was completely useless before the conversion. Know I wish I wouldn't have thrown so many hobby batteries away in the last few years. Any thought on the battery or software would be appreciated.
Oh. I used McCormick's alum mixed at a consistency that left a gelatinous precipitate on the bottom. I have more of the thick precipitate in the battery than the diluted concentrate.
John Hav.

[Les_K]

Hello John, All. I know small cells aren't as exciting a big ones but I have to say I'm impressed with the small conversion and it takes a lot to impress me. First let me ask before I have everyone sleeping again: Does anyone have recommendations for graphing software? I have Eagle Tree but it's not good for testing smaller currents. I was ready for some video but I wanted to do more than light up light bulbs. Listen though. I must have done something wrong because I'm getting to much voltage. I know: There must have still been acid in the battery. I can't believe that's what it is. The battery is only 1.3 ah and was a sealed lead acid. It doesn't use much more that 1-2 ounces of electrolyte. I put a tube in each cell and attached it to the faucet and ran water in for an hour on each cell. I then switched to Baking Soda and water and used a big 2 ounce syringe to force about a quart of water into the cells while rinsing. I then left the cells over night with the baking soda. Then I pressure rinsed about another gallon of distilled watter through the cells. I did not reverse charge the battery. Maybe I should have but the battery charges to 16.5 volts then rests to about 12.4. After running some loads for an hour or so the resting voltage is more like 12.2 I have charged this battery over night three times now at 50-100 ma and ran tests the entire next day with current draws as high as 250 ma. At 250 ma the battery will stabilize at about 11.8 volts and hold there for a nice slow discharge rate. I never had this current density when the battery was new. Not to mention the battery was completely useless before the conversion. Know I wish I wouldn't have thrown so many hobby batteries away in the last few years. Any thought on the battery or software would be appreciated.
Oh. I used McCormick's alum mixed at a consistency that left a gelatinous precipitate on the bottom. I have more of the thick precipitate in the battery than the diluted concentrate.
John Hav.

Hi DadHav,
This makes me wonder what might be in your tap water. Perhaps even what might have been absorbed into the lead. I have noticed in my conversions that the ones that I had not cleaned as well (little to anxious on the first one...) do have a higher resting voltage.

Les

[Slider2732]

@DadHav - Great cliffhanger there waiting for the results. Nothing of a bad thing to get results like those

@All - I found this MIT lecture: Lec 26 | MIT 3.091SC Introduction to Solid State Chemistry, Fall 2010 - YouTube
While watching, at about the 10 minute marker, things began to get very interesting regarding our experiments. In the few minutes that followed, i'd learned a lot about proton transfer and receptors and....NaCl
So, dashing to the kitchen, I dismembered the sugar/alum 2 lead plate cell (which was ok, but obviously sugar wasn't the missing ingredient) and followed John's/Chuck's video about the paste formation. I used Morton's Salt Subsitute and, it did indeed gel up when mixed with the alum ! The lead plates were coated, then the alum/distilled water mix soaked into a couple of cotton balls for the seperators. No idea if I do have the right mix yet, but after 5 minutes of 3.5V charge at 1A, it collapsed back to about 0.6V and yet had 170mA apparently available ! It's charging up properly now, so i'll know more later.

In a way I hope it isn't correct, because you do realise what the abbreviation for Alum Salt Subsitute would be ?

[Allwest]

@DadHav - Great cliffhanger there waiting for the results. Nothing of a bad thing to get results like those

@All - I found this MIT lecture: Lec 26 | MIT 3.091SC Introduction to Solid State Chemistry, Fall 2010 - YouTube
While watching, at about the 10 minute marker, things began to get very interesting regarding our experiments. In the few minutes that followed, i'd learned a lot about proton transfer and receptors and....NaCl
So, dashing to the kitchen, I dismembered the sugar/alum 2 lead plate cell (which was ok, but obviously sugar wasn't the missing ingredient) and followed John's/Chuck's video about the paste formation. I used Morton's Salt Subsitute and, it did indeed gel up when mixed with the alum ! The lead plates were coated, then the alum/distilled water mix soaked into a couple of cotton balls for the seperators. No idea if I do have the right mix yet, but after 5 minutes of 3.5V charge at 1A, it collapsed back to about 0.6V and yet had 170mA apparently available ! It's charging up properly now, so i'll know more later.

In a way I hope it isn't correct, because you do realise what the abbreviation for Alum Salt Subsitute would be ?

Slider,

Very nice find, we can ass-ume it is the right mix, Ha!

Thanks
Best of luck

[Slider2732]

Well, it may be back assward yet
After a couple of hours I stopped charging it and it simply sat there at 1.90V. Normally they drop quite a bit and settle out, but now it's at 1.84V and that's great ! No idea on anything else yet.

Photobucket seems to have problems for uploads, but hopefully the pic of the mixture will show below. It's not little bits in the container, though it looks like it, both ingredients were in solution and then gelled up on mixing: