EER Joule Thief using an earth battery to start a joule thief.

[jeanna]

Jeanna i am using fire starter blocks not ribbon. i wish i had the ribbon
....... the most mamps i could get out of it was .07 not to good.

not good.
but it does explain why I could never get my eb to work when I was using cu or C and a mg block.

I connected iron/steel wire to the magnesium block and copper wire to an art supply store graphite rod. the graphite rod is about 1/2 inch in diameter by about 4 inches long. this so far is my best cell it puts out 1.31 volts and 3.10 mamps.

This sounds really great.
my germanium jtc will start with 2.8mA IF I have the memory cap across the battery leads.
Have you tried that?

i have connected 4 cells in parallel and can now light a modified chilliqueen super jt. about 3/4 bright white led. or a regular jt but it's not as bright. i think this setup will run for weeks at a time.

Are you using chilliqueen's 2 transistor jt?

You said you were going to twist some iron wire around the mag firestarter. Is that what you did?

@dcc,

Just be very careful when working with magnesium ribbon.  If that goes up get away quick.  I don't know if it can be put out. 

I agree.
I think you cannot put it out. Smothering it (earth) is the only way I have seen on the web.

But, now that I have seen what happened, I nolonger think that it is the place where they connect that is the problem...the part above the ground is the only strong piece left.

====

I am not at all discouraged by this.
This is almost a control unit.

I wonder if there is an item that is like a stick. I thought of sparklers a while ago. Maybe a sparkler would make a good electrode. One with enough surface area but also enough thickness that it would deteriorate evenly.

Anyway my hope is to find a way to have the soil replenish the ions so there is no or minimal deterioration.

By the way, I looked at the leaf again.
I believe it loved being the host for this experiment.
Can't say if it is the HF or the Mg or dolomite or all of it, but this leaf is thick sturdy and very green today.
It has a glow to it.
Florists put shiny stuff on leaves to make the plant look healthy. This looks like that but for real.
I was looking for root growth earlier and did not notice the leaf.
I will have to add that to my tests.

Have any of you noticed an improvement in the appearance of your plants?

jeanna

[Pardon]

let me just back up a bit, no i did not wrap iron wire around the block. what i did do was test wire in water and test different metals in water. my iron/steel wire test minus voltage, magnesium tests minus voltage. so i think wrapping iron wire around magnesium would not give good results.

i then updated my cells using copper wire for the plus and iron wire for the minus. with all cells wired together is am getting 1.23 volts and 5.15 mamps

out of the 5 cells i have no two are alike but all of them use the fire starter for the magnesium.

if my file will attach this is the circuit i use one is the chilliqueen and the other is my modified version of it

[Pirate88179]

Jeanna:

Yes, back in the early days I was using copper.  The best thing about that was to put to rest the galvanic crowd that we had at that time.  I used two tubes of copper cut from the same pipe and still got volts and mA's when aligned properly which told me something else was making the juice...telluric currents maybe.

Now, we have seen folks do the flower pot experiments back then calling it an earth battery but since they were not in the ground, their results were not that great.  Galvanic probably.

But, now you added the plants into the mix so I don't know what might be going on here.  This is a new and different look at the EER or earth battery.

The fire starter blocks should work for you as I have used them in all of my early experiments.  They may still break down but it should take a lot longer for them to do that.  I was able to light my first led outside using one.

It will be interesting to see if Lasersaber's ribbon in the ground deteriorates or if the earth protects it.  My 5 lb mag. block may indeed be breaking down but, it may take such a long time that I don't notice it.  (I hope it does not)

I look forward to seeing what happens here with these power plants.  I never would have thought of trying this, great thinking!

Bill

[jeanna]

I have 2 power plants that have turned off today. The first one which has a red led is barely on at all so I am calling it off.

I think the most useful thing to do is to weigh the magnesium from both of the small plants and see how much was used before the breaks occurred.
The magnesium is not spent in these ribbons, but enough is missing that the ribbon cannot hold together, so the weight of what was used may not actually mean much. But it is better to get the weight now.

I am thinking of trying some montmorillinite clay the soil too. that is another possible source for magnesium and it makes an acid soil rather than the base of the dolomite. hmm  or a little of both and neutral?

Those old time earth batteries were made from iron not magnesium , so I may not be able to get the right chemistry here, but it is intriguing. Perhaps I should be using zinc with magnesium as anodic backup, but that will be a later test as the volts are so low with the zinc. And magnesium is a soil nutrient.

jeanna

OK I put all that on hold.

I discovered that the ribbon had broken at the surface of the soil as it had done with someone else. I repotted it and stuffed all the broken bits of magnesium back into the soil by the ribbon and it is starting up again now. The rest of the ribbon looked quite good as a matter of fact.

So, I will do all the weighing etc later.

,

jeanna

edit:

Now, I think I need to rethink my plan.
I thought I would be able to tell how much magnesium was being used by the weight of magnesium loss over time, but it seems to be breaking through unevenly . so, I guess I will reconnect the shreds of ribbon and restart until it is gone.
I suppose I can solder the pieces.
If dcc can use a cig lighter on the heatshrink, I guess solder won't start a blaze.

The light is bright again, btw. 

jeanna

[dcc]

Here's my plant battery after 9 days.  It seems to be thriving.  Magnesium ribbon south, copper wire north.  Made little "Power Plant" installed joule thief.

Doug