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....

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

Just a quick update with the standard aluminium. I built a burnt copper version and saw the same voltage but a tiny increase in amperage, 30uA, to 160uA, 0.568V.
It's now on test with the other one and i'll try leaded solder too.
Here's that cell and, btw, i've started using a different coil type for 'Penny' type oscillators. Ya know those small silver pots on old radios ? well it's the ferrite inside that can be turned with a small flatblade screwdriver. 150 winds of 40 gauge from a relay, then a twist to form the center tap and then carry on with another 150 winds. Just another type of coil.

I noticed something on my cells. I have been testing the same formula (Mg, sand, carbon, alum) with different quantities of alum. More alum in seems better. Now, i also have been adding water with and without almun.

What is very interesting is that the cells that i add more water with alum, after the cell diminish substantially its output power, is that alum will block all the inner micro-tubes formed that conducts the water and crystilize from within and break the cell and destroy it.

The cell even grows in size to the point of cracking the surrouding shell.

The cell when first made goes through a formation of its internal water conducts that allows the water to be decomposed in its parts while generating energy. It is necessary to let the cell to dry in its first months while running a load. After that first dry you can only add clean water, otherwise the cell will die.

The cells with iron pyrite performs better too. Corrosion is there but it does not corrode all. It gets to a balance point where the Mg is gray (MgOx x = 2, 3 or more) and Mg.

Fausto.

Thank you Fausto. Well taken, and noted.
I also have noticed that adding any kind of salts to the additional waterings would tend to be detrimental to my cells, after a while. So, now I'm using plain rain water, or tap water which has a little chloride, as it comes from the public water system. This seams to work ok. But, now after your comment, I'll only use just rain water, instead, as it rains almost every afternoon here now, and so is easy to obtain.
Have you had a chance to take some of the cells apart yet, for inspection that were treated with the permatex grease?

NickZ

fausto, thanks for this post, i have observed the same thing about letting the cell dry, consider this observation replicated and confirmed, good job.... what would you say is the right amount of alum in proportion to the other ingredients?

cheers

ib pointless and nick, guys this is not a boxing ring, please, patience my dear friends... i think both approaches have validity, and i myself am pointing to the dry cell, definitely its harder to get, but bear in mind, the solar cell is precisely that, a dry cell, or even, a radiant cell that only captures and converts visible light, or heat, its main ingredient is selenium (which captures and directly converts heat into electricity)... i guess the next step is to come up with a cell that captures and converts more of the radiant spectrum, such as UV, gamma, microwaves, and radio waves, even ether, which are radiating into our planet at all times, they penetrate clouds and are present at night. materials such as bismuth, galena (wich is known to capture radio waves), and magnetite could be used to capture these radiant waves... cheers, don't give up, i'm sure that those micro amps can be stepped up with the proper research and experimentation.

carlos

Here is an interesting crystal salt

Magnetic Salt - Dysprosium Nitrate
Magnetic Salt - Dysprosium Nitrate - YouTube

@all:
Here is my replication of the chemalloy battery.

Chamalloy Battery 1st Attempt

The current seems very high for the weak electrolyte used. I used the 4043 alloy in this build. After 3 hours running LaserSaber’s mini joule ringer circuit I rechecked the short circuit readings and they have not fallen like my typical galvanic cells have. This cell appears to be worthy of further study. If I can get the longevity Sawt2 has on his, I will be very happy.

Enjoy, Brad S

Brad S

Very nice presentation, thank you

Best of luck

OK Brad I was inspired by your video so I built a similar cell today and the results were close to yours.
I could not get any of the special Chemalloy welding rod but I did get a piece of ZA (zinc / aluminum alloy) off ebay that seems to work quite well. This week I will try again to get the real stuff. I used the activated charcoal and the same electrolyte (water, sea salt, and vinegar) that you used. My power output was similar to yours (about a volt and over 100mA) but as always the question will be ---For how long??? Right now I have tried this cell on most of my AA battery "toys" and it will run most of them. This is probably just another simple galvanic but if it will keep putting out more power and for longer than the others we have built ----who cares. If I can put a bunch of these together and get it to run my new Joule Ringer 2.0 that would be great. I would need at least a six pack. Maybe a 12 pack.

Lidmotor

I think that if it does run the Joule Ringer you could do worse than buying a different kind of 6 pack !
200mA of Brads, 100mA of yours - great

An inevitable question perhaps - is there anything commonly found in garden implements or around the house that may use such a Zn/Al alloy ?
I'm thinking of cutting out the weldings of old pots and pans...or something.

I'm thinking of pulling them out of my bikes Al frame weldings, but I'll wait until we hear about how it went with the pots and pan welds, first.

Alpaca is another alloy, as it's called here, used by craftspeople to make their wares, similar somewhat to silver, but much cheaper, and it comes in wire of different thickness, and other sizes, and dimensions. I know that it does not easily rust, and may be very rust and salts resistant, and long lasting. It's cheap and can even be replaceable electrode. Probably all depends what medium it's going to be put it.
But, it looks like the activated carbon, and Mg, or Al, work well, and produces some juice.
Aluminum has less voltage output, but it may outlast Mg, and it's easy to get and cheap to use. The trick now is seeing what lasts longer, and if it can be easily replaced when it wears out.

@Nick - after reading your post I started wondering about the fencing in the backyard. It's been there for many years, no rust, the common interwoven steel looking stuff of about equiv 10 gauge copper.
I snipped some off with pliers and, with a piece of unburnt regular copper, put it with tap water in a pills bottle.
0.904V @ 1.3mA
So, that's another non ruster that would be very easy to replace or build from scratch.

just a little info that might be worth exploring ( mentioned it to slider ) with your battery mix as most of us has a fridge

How to Revive a Dead Laptop Battery with Step-by-Step Pictures


just thought you might like to know this

ps: magnetite is also tetrahedral structure

Nice work Brad!

What happens when you place the chemalloy metal in a cup of white distilled vinegar?

After a full 36 hours, the 6" cell is sitting on 70mA. This seems to confirm what I have read about this cell. Let's see if it will hold there or continue to drop. It has been under load the entire time with LaserSaber's Mini Joule Ringer circuit.
Could not resist the 6-pack, lol, so here you go. These cell are 3" and 6 in series gives 3.8Volts and 150mA. This is 7 10mm LEDS without any circuit.

Brad S

@IB - Shut it down for the night. I will be happy to start that test tomorrow.

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Looking good Brad, let us know how the cells hold out.

Slider, funny you should ask, about back yard non rusting materials to use on the cells.
I had some of the power line wire that the electric power company uses here for their street lines. I had some of that's laying on the ground going from my house to my water well, for the last 15 years or so. It's aluminum alloy, with a center steel line, and none of which had rusted, laying there for years.
So, I took some yards of the aluminum wire and made several cells with it. Using a 1/2" copper pipe cut about 8 in long, and the Al wire wrapped around it with a paper separator between, Lasersaber style.
It worked good, but as more salt was added to the paper electrolyte separator, it did start to eat the aluminum wire as well as the copper tube, in time. If you let it dry out, the voltage and current dropped. If you wet it again, it came to life again, as is normal for the Lasersaber type cell. But, it was just using some back yard scrap aluminum wire and copper pipe, ocean water, or table salt. This was made almost two years ago, or so.
So, I wound the same type of wire around my 6 foot copper framed pyramid, using a cloth separator in between. But, it had no conduction dry, nada, zip, zilch, zero. Oh, I think I may have gotten a 1/4 volt maybe, or less. So, I wet the cotton cloth separator, and of course it started to work. The more separate coil winds I placed on the same copper tube pyramid frame, the higher was the output. All the separate coil winds were separate cells, but mounted on the same copper pipe as their positive rail. And that is what happened with that. So, long as you wet the paper or cloth separator, it gave several volts, and a some mAs, which would brightly light some leds. I just don't remember the exact readings now.
The main thing that I learned from doing that was that the more separate but series connected winds of the aluminum wire or coils that are placed on the same copper pipe, the higher was the output.

plengo,

When the cell is going bad, do the volts go down first, and the amps stay up?

Brad---
I found that Lincoln Electric 4043 Aluminum MIG wire at Lowes yesterday and bought some ($13 for 1lb. roll). I did some testing and it didn't work out that well so I looked into what it is made of. It is basically all Aluminum with trace amounts of other things. Chemalloy according to the patent looks like this for a 100 lb batch:

Zinc --82 lbs.

Aluminum --8 lbs.

Yellow brass --8 lbs.

Solder (tin/lead) --1.5 lbs.

Silver or Nickel --.1 lbs.


My test cell worked but the wire was quickly eaten up and broke up just like a regular Aluminum wire cell would. It isn't the Chemalloy aluminum welding rod that we are looking for. I will try to get down to Harbor Freight today and get some of their "AlumiWeld" rods which are the zinc based stuff.

My other cell using the ZA metal that I got on Ebay did work quite well but dropped off in power. I took it apart this morning and there was a black oxide forming on the surface of the ZA anode. The good news is that there was little or no pitting.

----And the quest goes on.

--Lidmotor

Great job on the research! Mine are still holding together and I have not taken any apart to check, I am certain I will come to the same conclusion as yours. Hard to see anything in the alloy mix you show that would create any magic. I have some 97% zinc rods that I would like to parallel with your test of the Harbor Freight Rods. If you can share the build and electrolyte mix, I will try to mirror your build for comparison. Even if this turns out as purely galvinic (which looks like it should) a long running cell with useable current is fine with me. I could not find anything on the Harbor Freight site that indicated what their rods were made of. Good investigative work

Brad S

Brad
I believe the rods at Harbor Freight may be Alumiweld, you might check their website for composition.
Brian

Thank You very much. I checked the Alumiweld web site and they say this is a zinc alloy. There is a Harbor Freight Store that I pass on my way home. I am stopping by there today and will pick some up. I do plan to parallel this test with the 97% zinc rods that I have to see if there is any magic in this alloy. I hope to get the positive long term results you have reported. Can you post a picture of your cells, or report the size and how they are built? Again, thanks.

Brad S

Some info from the Alumiweld's questions answered site:

AlumiWeld's Frequently Asked Questions

@Lidmotor - just to verify, did your cell get eaten up through the use of vinegar ?
It seems a very rapid process that you described. Certainly, the speed of ZA oxidation also caught me by surprise in your report.


For my little tests in tap water of the last few days -
The aluminium cells have both stopped running completely, which is very interesting. Did the simple act of cutting them from the heatsink pieces result in re-oxidation over the couple of days ?
Testing both cells with the DVM and oscillator loads connected, sees 0.442 on the burnt copper one and 0.446 on the unburnt copper one - which I expect to be 1mV less than the switch on point of the oscillators. Disconnect the loads and they climb up past 0.5V, toward 0.6V, but then drop immediately again on load connection.
The situation has occurred before, in outside yard tests with various metals. With no load there can be as much as say 0.780V or something, with copper and steel pieces in the ground, but connect a load and the dip is to 1mV less than the exact switch on voltage of the transistor. A puzzling situation, but common in such experiments.

The fence wire cell remains exactly the same The voltage output beats galvanized steel and the amperage is not fading at all
Looks good for long term and it's no way a rare material.

Had a comical thought about that and relates to Nick's observation build of multi-oscillators using the same copper piece -
Drive up to the Energizer battery offices at night after a heavy storm. Find one of their copper water pipes outside and connect a bunch of LED oscillators low down between the pipe and the fencing around their property.
Place a sign on the ground that says "Bugs Bunny woz 'ere"

Aluminum can create a layer of clear almost invisible oxides in a matter of minutes, sometimes, and needs to be scrapped off for it to really conduct well. The Al tubes I use have a layer of clear type of galvanizing, or something similar, and don't oxidize on that surface unless I sand it off. My cells are still outputting up to 75 mAs, months later...
Bugs Bunny: Actually there were no oscillators connected or needed, on the copper pipe mentioned. And no one said "What's up Doc"? either.

@All
I found the Alumiweld at Harbor Freight today. I only had a little time to test it when I got home but it looks good.


@Slider and Nick
That Bugs Bunny thing got me wondering about using this welding rod stuck in the ground next to a copper or graphite rod as an earth battery. That would be really cool if we could finally make a true "Bedini Earth Light". That was the original intent when this thread started long ago.

@Brad and Sawt2
I will try to get a cell going as soon as I can and report back. I'll use the saline electrolye with ammonia or vinegar to bump up the amps. The activated charcoal with a copper electrode will be the cathode. I have some solid graphite rods that I might try also.



Lidmotor

Considering Alumiweld has a low melting point that can be melted with a propane torch. I wonder if adding magnesium filings to the melted Alumiweld might increase its output!

May be worth experimenting with different mixes like 50/50 or 60/40 and so on.

Randy

Don't know if this was posted already, but it's a pretty interesting battery..

Donald Sadoway: The missing link to renewable energy - YouTube

We used 1/2 inch copper water pipe 6" long.
The chemalloy came in 9" pieces so we just cut them in half Probably could cut in quarter and would work fine. We wrapped the chemalloy in cotton bed sheet material till it would stay put inside the copper.
Without looking at my notes I think the electrolyte was 36 grams salt in 1 gallon of water and 18 drops of ammonia. I think I will let it run like this for 180 days then check for deterioration then will reassemble and try more LEDs. By the way this runs without any circuit, it is a LED connected directly.
The 6 cells are wired 3 in series twice then wired paralel. It's about 4.3 volts no load. with the LED it hangs right around 2.45 very steadily. Each cell sits in a glass test tube, found them dirt cheap on net. (I thought the Bedini made a nice backdrop).

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@Sawt2:That is a really nice setup and you have been very gracious to share your experience with us. You have set a high bench mark, hope we can achieve your success. I went to Harbor Freight yesterday and bought some of the AlumiWeld rods. Threw a quick 3-pack together this afternoon, don't know what happened to the other 3 .

This is a mini version of the cells, 2" tall. Used activated carbon, ground to a powder in an old coffee grinder. If more surface area of the carbon yeilds more current, then powdered carbon should give a lot of surface area. Initial readings. 3.22 Volts, current starts at 71mA and drops and holds at 45mA. With 2 LEDS the Voltage sits at 2.9 and the light is very good. I am sure the current will drop over time, hope it stays at a useable level and the voltage holds. I will watch these for a few days before attempting larger cells.

Thanks again Brian for your inspiration.

Brad S

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