Bedini Earth Light

[Lidmotor]

Homemade Gelatine Battery

@David
Thanks for making one of these "gelatine" type cells. I am using copper and magnesium instead of copper and aluminum and getting between 1.2 and 1.6volts out of the cells. I don't know why your voltage was so low. These cells should produce the same voltage results as just sticking the electrodes in a cup of the liquid electrolyte. The amperage has to do with the surface area of the electrodes BUT these cells don't produce much amperage.
Here is the recipe that I used for the semi-solid electrolyte
(1) cup distilled water
(1) tablespoon Knox Gelatine
(1) teaspoon McCormick Alum

Boil and stir until completely dissolved
Refridgerate until solid

I had similar results as you had with the freezing and "charging". I also found out that you can restart the cell by removing the electrodes, melting the gelatine (a couple of seconds in the microwave oven), and freezing it again into the semi-soild. It is interesting stuff to work with.

Here is a "how to" video of the work so far:

YouTube - Homemade Gelatine Battery.ASF

@Ibpointless
I worked with your "Glue Battery" more and found that if you put it in a small plastic bag that it will not dry out. I show that in the video also. It is still running that LCD clock.

Lidmotor

[synchro]

Wax.

@Inquorate,

Heres a quote from Mikrovolt's reply "Electret Q&A 02/07/01":

"I have learned that when the electret effect was first observed, it was produced in a relatively soft wax and if left undischarged for a long period of time, dissipated. In order to preserve an electret device in these soft mediums, they wrapped them in foil which would have continually discharged them".

Both carnauba and bees wax are organic and built from the same kind of alkyl long chain molecules. They seem to be interchangeable for the electret medium, although not the same, but unlike synthetic wax. Thanks.

[Lajdva]

@David
Thanks for making one of these "gelatine" type cells. I am using copper and magnesium instead of copper and aluminum and getting between 1.2 and 1.6volts out of the cells. I don't know why your voltage was so low. These cells should produce the same voltage results as just sticking the electrodes in a cup of the liquid electrolyte. The amperage has to do with the surface area of the electrodes BUT these cells don't produce much amperage.
Here is the recipe that I used for the semi-solid electrolyte
(1) cup distilled water
(1) tablespoon Knox Gelatine
(1) teaspoon McCormick Alum

Boil and stir until completely dissolved
Refridgerate until solid

I had similar results as you had with the freezing and "charging". I also found out that you can restart the cell by removing the electrodes, melting the gelatine (a couple of seconds in the microwave oven), and freezing it again into the semi-soild. It is interesting stuff to work with.

Here is a "how to" video of the work so far:

YouTube - Homemade Gelatine Battery.ASF

@Ibpointless
I worked with your "Glue Battery" more and found that if you put it in a small plastic bag that it will not dry out. I show that in the video also. It is still running that LCD clock.

Lidmotor

Thanks for video. I can see that your jelly doesn’t have almost any crystals in it. I will try your mixture with alu can and a copper soon and we will see. I have a question. Did you heat up the copper to semi-conductorand where did you find magnesium? I am from Australia and I am not to sure where to start with some kind of materials. It took 3 week to find Alum here.

[ibpointless2]

I must say these glue and gel batteries are quite fun to play with. Thanks Lidmotor for the good idea to keep the glue cell in the bag to slow down the drying process.

One question I have is what does the "alum" do? Why do you guys use it?


I've made a update video about my many glue batteries, I have many different types of cells and I'm getting interesting results. Here's the video YouTube - Upadate on glue battery 4-24-11


Some people posted some stuff about Townsend brown and I think his works does relate to some of the power we're seeing from the cells. I say about 5% to 20% of our total power is coming from the "dielectric electricity" (water, glue, cement, alum-water, gel, etc.). The reason why I make these claims is from my experiments with using only aluminum as the anode and cathode for my cells, they tend to produce 5% to 20% of a dissimilar metal cell total power. The same metal cells are getting voltage from the dielectric material of water or Glue. Even Graphite only cell shows voltage is coming from the dielectric of the cell. So Our cells are not 100% galvanic, it seems that some of the power is coming from the effect that a dielectric produces a electret like effect and gives off power.

Also on the topic I make note in the video that the same metal cells such as the graphite one in particular will show some interesting effects when given a load. Example: When I hook a low micro farad capacitor up to a meter the meter will drain the capacitor until it gets to zero volts, The capacitor is empty so thus the reading is in the realm of zero volts. Now I do this same thing to the cell that has a graphite anode and cathode, it to will drain and go to zero volts but will continue past zero on to -.01mV, -.02mV,-.03mV and so on. It seems the same metal cells negatively charges when given a load.

[Inquorate]

@Chuck H and everyone -
Recently I tried Glycerin and made a paste with the Alum. The current is higher than using distilled water. Short term results look promising. For a quick burst in power, mist with 3% hydrogen peroxide. I am not using the heat treated copper yet with this electrolyte, but I am using carbon between the copper foil and magnesium.
Brad

this is interesting. The glycerin molecule shouldn't give up it's hydrogen and oxygen atoms: from what i can tell, it only does this readily with fat molecules

What Is Glycerin (or Glycerine or Glycerol)?
What Is Glycerin (or Glycerine or Glycerol)?

when we can stop the internal currents in the cell and thus the galvanic action, we just have a voltage potential or dipole. Then we will be doing what bearden proposes which is using a dipole without using it to destroy itself. Then we should find that the energy chemi furnished is free from the ZPE.

So, anything that inhibits chemical change in the cell is a good thing, and a step in the right direction.

[Lajdva]

My jelly battery ruined

Hi Guys,
I found one little issue with my version of a jelly battery. I left that in a shed last day and it was around 32C in Perth (38C in my shed) and my jelly melted. What was interesting that all crystal of alum moved towards to copper wire and aluminium can.

@ Lidmotor
Thank you for your video. I watch that finally with sound (don’t ask why I watch that first time without sound) and you had several important point for me. Magnesium and copper are the key to success with this kind of batteries. I will try to replicate you "cooking" recipe and I will post the results. I want also try to stack the cell to produce more voltage.

@ All
If anybody have any idea how to prevent jelly from melting in 32C I will be happy to hear from you.

Thanks
David

[synchro]

Electric Rocks.

Here are some good video links of Electric Rocks; The first from "ibepointless2":

YouTube - Rock Battery

The second from "Hemancro", He has 4 videos. This is one; The rest are attached to the link:

YouTube - Electricity from small rock 3

[b_rads]

Glycerin?

@Inquorate
I stumbled upon the source you gave in your post when I started looking into glycerin as an additive for these batteries. The reason I chose glycerin is because it is a hermectant.
A hermectant is a hygroscopic substance that absorbs water from the air. The cells I made with the glycerin are now a full 5 days old and have not shown any decline since they leveled out. Each cell is powering a solar accent light at least 10 hours a day. The battery has been removed, so the only power source is the homemade battery.

@Lajdva – quote – “I want also try to stack the cell to produce more voltage.”
Now that I know the alum and glycerin behave themselves when mixed together, I also want to revisit the voltaic cell. With the properties of the glycerin, I think we can remove the cell from the airtight containers John Bedini has shown us how to make. I am a fan of his voltaic battery.

@ibpointless2 and @lidmotor
From the link listed is this little tidbit:
“The horn-like hardness of glue and gelatin can be modified to almost any extent by the addition of glycerine and water. Flexibility is first attained, then as more glycerine is used, the mixture can be made rubbery and finally a permanently soft and tacky product is obtained. As the glycerine content is increased, the amount of water permanently held is increased and the melting point of the composition is decreased.”

http://www.aciscience.org/docs/Uses_of_Glycerine.pdf

Brad

[mikrovolt]

I spotted a 12V 240Amp/hr tractor battery at walmart $19USD, looked like a practical way to get useful electrical storage. Might last 6 months.
A way to maintain it and keep it charged ? A maintainer adds life expectancy to battery ?


Designing a (100mA) practical crystal cell.
I found a battery handbook online has some pictures.
I dont know how much good looking at lead acid criterea
sometimes pictures help design.
as easy to work with prototype, frequent assembling and dissassembling
in concidering a multiple plate cell.
The battery design constraints for lead acid are many, some are:
The design might allow gassing (reduce explosion) ,
shedding (free fall path for sulphation deposits)
* reverse migration cleaning the surface.
most important to longevity is eliminating shorts in multiple cells,
so the cleaning feature being a very important feature for longevity.
Planned non-obsolesence.
On pages 206 the sintered plate design and page 212 the discharge rate
Battery technology handbook - Google Books
Because of simplicity of the crystal cell to that of a large storage battery our needs are less sufficticated:
surface area of horizontal plates.
absorbance crystal layer thickness.
water delivery system.
cleaning feature ( scrub brush)
Longevity many years.

[blackchisel97]

I spotted a 12V 240Amp/hr tractor battery at walmart $19USD, looked like a practical way to get useful electrical storage. Might last 6 months.
A way to maintain it and keep it charged ? A maintainer adds life expectancy to battery ?

Wow Quite a deal for 240Ah. I have a hard time to get even dead batteries. My oldest one is about 11 years and all at 97-98% capacity. All have been salvaged and some were sitting at 2-3V. There is no reason for your battery to die within 6 mths. Worst batteries are those used to start the engines. During cranking 6 - 8 or more cylinders in sub zero temp. they're getting seriously violated. Commercial boosters are another "killers". When batteries are used as a storage and with respect to their C20 rate they should last ages, not just couple years. I would grab a few if they'd have a deal like that around here. I have to pay 5 -10$ to get a dead one from a scrap.


Vtech

[Lajdva]

Jelly battery update

@all
I manage to made worm tray battery from jelly mixture that Lidmotor used. I used an old tray from worm food for fishes and I filled that with alum jelly. I used copper and zinc wire. Every cell has between 0.6-0.9V and when connected in series it shows around 10V. This little tray has 16 cells. When I put load on the battery (LED) the voltage dropped rapidly and LED was barely lighting. When I disconnect the LED the voltage went back to original. I was just wondering if amount of material and jelly had impact on the current and voltage. I thing voltage is not changed at all with amount.

@Lidmotor
I know that you mention that but I would like to know how to find if this jelly battery is galvanic or not.

Thanks,
David

[Lajdva]

Suggestion for battery recondition.

@all
Is that stupid idea to use jelly with alum to recondition of a car battery??? I think that charging would be an issue.

@microvolt
Really good deal for new battery.

[blackchisel97]

@all
Is that stupid idea to use jelly with alum to recondition of a car battery??? I think that charging would be an issue.

Most batteries can be restored/rejuvenated/reincarnated, (whatever you want to call this electrochemical process) by hv pulse from a coil or transformer in John Bedini fashion. If battery is so severely clogged that pulse technology doesn't work or cell (s) are shorted then flushing/replacing fluid only make sense if you're very attached to it or battery is irreplaceable (unique)or very expensive. While converting to the alum works I doubt that satisfactory results can be obtained by filling car battery with jelly. You need to be able to draw couple hundred amps in order to crank your engine. Those cells are small scale so far and in mA range. I'm trying to imagine those poor gummy bears forced to squeeze out so much juice. Mass jellycide.


Vtech

[synchro]

Amperage

@Lajdva,

Partial Quote:

" I was just wondering if amount of material and jelly had impact on the current and voltage."

Lidmotor states that the amount of wire is proportional to the amount of amperage. So, two spiral pancake coils of wire should increase amperage more then just a couple of short lengths. Try his combination of magnesium and copper wire with the pancake coils in series to 12 volts, then try to light a 12 volt bulb. Your LED has to rated at 10 volts to work off a battery that's generating 10 volts. You may have just burned out the LED and caused a direct short to the battery.

@Lidmotor,

Hope you don't mind my taking the liberty to speak for you. I'm very impressed with your latest achievment!

[Lidmotor]

Aged "Gelatine Battery"---still working

@All
Sorry that I have not responded quickly to the questions but I wanted to wait a little while and do some more testing before I said anything else. This gelatine (or "gelatin") idea worked for me and I hope that someone else can replicate it. I believe that it is just a simple galvanic cell but it does have some desirable characteristics. There is one characteristic that is puzzling though. Gas bubbles form on BOTH electrodes as the cell discharges. Someone here can probably tells us the chemical reaction going on. It looks like electrolysis but backwards?
I also did some more research into this type gelatin and found out that when they make ballistic gelatin they add a drop or two of cinnamon oil to the mix to help clarify it and stop the mold.

Here is an update video of the "aged" cell and what it can do:

YouTube - Aged Gelatine Battery ---still working.ASF

Diveflyfish on Youtube has been in contact with me and is doing work with sodium polyacrylate as a substitute for the food grade gelatine. That substance is what is used in diapers to absorb water and he has a video out of his cell made using that.

YouTube - Gel Battery NA+Polyacrylate.mov

Cheers,

Lidmotor