Nathan Stubblefield Earth battery/Self Generating Induction Coil Replications

[hansvonlieven]

G'day all,

On the wire debate, here are my 2 cents worth.

Having examined and repaired in the course of my career a number of devices from the Stubblefield era, the most common insulation for copper wires was spun silk. I believe you can still buy this, it is called litz wire these days though I believe they are all multistrand now, which shouldn't matter.

Rather than using such hard to get stuff or trying to make your own, let us examine what we are trying to do here. What you want to do is to prevent the two metal wires touching each other while allowing the electrolyte to circulate. In the individual layers this is not a problem since you can wrap a piece of cotton material between the layers. the real problem is how to keep the tightly wound wires from touching each other while they are lying side by side.

My suggestion is to put a nylon fishing line between them. so you have in your layer copper-nylon-iron-nylon-copper and so forth. This way the wires don't touch, yet your electrolyte can circulate. It is easy to do and it will work.

Hans von Lieven

[Localjoe]

@Hans
          Yes i guess it should work, but  with the gauge wire im using the nylon might be hard to use.  Main concept is an insulation for only the bolt and the iron wire.  use someting like cloth, silk, fabric, old garden gloves, white tee shirt cut up.  I taped mine in lengths piece by piece directly on the iron wire, with a little electrical tape at each joint.  Im trying to get pics here but for each one i send from my phone its 35 cents and ive got like 7 .. no transflash adapter errrrr im working on it.
                                                                                                                             Joe

[jeanna]

the most common insulation for copper wires was spun silk. I believe you can still buy this, it is called litz wire
Hans von Lieven

Hans,
Did you ever ACTUALLY SEE the spun silk. It sounds like not cloth to me. hard to say, language changes so much.
Nylon is probably a good substitute for silk. silk is a protein and nylon is polyamide made to be structurally like a protein fiber. They would be closer than cotton is to either. I think they would allow the passage of electrolyte similarly. (Cellulose would work but differently, I'm sure.)

jeanna

[Pirate88179]

@ Hans:

Thanks for the nylon line information, good idea.  I have one thought perhaps.....when you place a non-conductor (fishing line) between 2 conductors (copper and iron wire) would you not in effect have a capacitor?  I wonder if this plays any part in the way it works?  Perhaps Stubblefields coils (using his cotton or whatever) were not only working by induction but also as a capacitor as well?  Just a thought.  Off to locate some iron wire.

Bill

[hansvonlieven]

Hans,
Did you ever ACTUALLY SEE the spun silk. It sounds like not cloth to me. hard to say, language changes so much.
Nylon is probably a good substitute for silk. silk is a protein and nylon is polyamide made to be structurally like a protein fiber. They would be closer than cotton is to either. I think they would allow the passage of electrolyte similarly. (Cellulose would work but differently, I'm sure.)

jeanna

Yes, I have handled wires like this many times, you could still buy silk spun wire in the 1950's. It was often used in RF coils for detector circuits and the like.

Hans von Lieven