Ibpointless2 Crystal Cells

[b_rads]

@IB:
I have some hematite somewhere, for the life of me, I cannot find it.  I did do an experiment though.  Using those little black craft magnets I found the following;
A cube magnet - positive to dry side of magnet, negative with water on opposite side and voltage read .155 Volts,
A cube magnet - positive to dry side of magnet, negative with vinegar on opposite side and voltage read .289 Volts.
A large Button magnet - proportionally less voltage.
A small Button magnet - even less, but still measurable.
A neo magnet - no voltage.
I also tried using copper wire on the positive (oops, should have said negative) but readings were slightly less than using the clip only.
Proceed with caution, I am not certain how to interpret these results.

Brad

[jbignes5]

 If you are gonna go the route of iron oxides then check this:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ochre

[PhiChaser]

Got my oscope today! A lightly used Tektronix 422. I haven't had much time to play around with it yet, but I was able to get some standing waves messing around with a probe and some of my cells... Also pretty sure the maximum frequency is (WAY) too low to see crystals vibrating or anything exciting like that. However I believe I can do a lot of good testing by comparing how the cells discharge and what the waveforms look like when they do. It has been quite a while since I have dialed in a trace.....
So, since there are a lot of folks here who have used and/or currently own scopes, perhaps someone will throw some ideas my way. I have some low voltage capacitors coming in a week or so, maybe I can figure out some configurations that can help my research until then.
Anyhow the scope goes up to 15MHz and has a dual trace so at least I can compare cells maybe...
Happy experimenting all,
PC

[jbignes5]

I currently own a BK Precision 1477 15 mhz scope. The one thing I suggest is to find a good earth ground and hook that to the scope. This way the scope will not react to the ground in your house. When looking at my cells on the scope I did see an ac component when connected across the cells.


This led me to put a full wave bridge rectifier onto the cells and to my amazement gave me a tad bit more dc out of the cells. Now I know a lot about electronics and the interactions with rectifiers and it did not make any sense that I should get more voltage out of the cells then without the rectifier. So this does prove, to me at least that there is something more to these cells. Even if the bridge rectifier was working as some have suggested in a one sided mode then wouldn't there be a voltage drop across the bridge? Wouldn't that lower the dc output and not raise it?

[PhiChaser]

I currently own a BK Precision 1477 15 mhz scope. The one thing I suggest is to find a good earth ground and hook that to the scope. This way the scope will not react to the ground in your house. When looking at my cells on the scope I did see an ac component when connected across the cells.
This led me to put a full wave bridge rectifier onto the cells and to my amazement gave me a tad bit more dc out of the cells. Now I know a lot about electronics and the interactions with rectifiers and it did not make any sense that I should get more voltage out of the cells then without the rectifier. So this does prove, to me at least that there is something more to these cells. Even if the bridge rectifier was working as some have suggested in a one sided mode then wouldn't there be a voltage drop across the bridge? Wouldn't that lower the dc output and not raise it?

Thanks for the tip Jbignes5! I will see about finding a good ground source. I live on the 2nd story in a condo so I'm gonna have to 'discretely' put in my own ground rod, wire up the side of the building, and leave myself access to it through a window... Sounds like fun!   (Is the external ground the unmarked thing on the bottom right?)
Question: If I use the same low voltage source (for a signal generator) on both traces, say a low voltage transformer for some gizmo, only hook one trace up opposite polarity, then add my own cell into one of the 'circuits', can I use the 'alg' function to cancel out the lv source to see my cell voltage more clearly?
I can't believe how expensive signal generators are... Might be cheaper to build one heh heh...
I will have to get/build a bridge rectifier too...
More fun today with my new scope and some cells and stuff.

Happy experimenting all,
PC