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

[Pirate88179]

dcc:

wow, you have been very busy.  I am glad you are feeling better.

Nice work on cutting the Magnesium, you have some great materials there.

My first thought on seeing your EB in the ground is this, your electrodes are waaaay to close together.  On my first attempt, they were about 5 feet apart, and now they are about 15 feet apart.  I have read that the further the better, I just don't have any more space to do so.

Since you are using plates, I am not sure which way they should be oriented.  Possibly, you could bury some scale model sized plates in different orientations and take some readings before using the larger ones?  You know, one set (of small ones) facing flat side up, another try with flat side north/south, and maybe another with flat side east/west?  Then, which ever way gives the best results, bury your large ones.

With that much material and surface area, you should be getting at least 1.8+ volts and a good amount of mA's I should think.  (My guess would be 30-40 or probably more)

I also agree that it might have been better just to use your native soil around the electrodes as you said.  Your idea was a good one to try, but since the output is below what you should expect, I would try the regular soil.

Also, in my experience anyway, I did not get my best output for a while.  The original output was decent yes, but it got better in about a week or two.  Maybe this was the time it took for the soil to repack itself around the electrodes?  I don't really know.

Best of luck and thank you for all of your experiments and great reporting of them.

If you get a chance (maybe you did already but I missed it) can you post your sources for your materials?  Those appear to be much better and larger than anything I have found around here in KY.

Thanks,

Bill

[dcc]

@Bill and @All

Thanks.  I purchased my materials from Ebay.  Yes I intend to rework my EER.  The reason the electrodes are so close together is that I was factoring in the magnetic dip angle of 65 degrees.  I wasn't able to dig deeper than 3 feet with a shovel.  Maybe the dip angle is not as important as the distance apart.  I've got 100 feet easy to play with.  When I get feeling better I'll give it another try.

BTW, I sneaked down to Lowes this morning and picked up 8 of those solar garden lights they have on sale for $2.49 a piece through 5-17. 

I took one apart and they come with 1 rechargeable AA NiCad, the solar cell, CDS with circuit to turn on and off automatically.  It runs on 1 AA.  It must be some kind of JT.  It has an ANA608 but I can't find a data sheet on it.

Well worth the money for EER/JT experimentation.

Pictures attached...

Planned Plant Battery Experiment - I've been thinking about creating 4 "Plant Batteries" with identical MG/Graphite electrodes in 4 identical pots.  Each will be filled with the same type of potting soil.

They will be watered via an automatic hydroponic irrigation system.

Two pots will use Miracle Grow with tap water and two will just use tap water. 

Two pots will have similar plants, 2 will have no plants.  Each will have a simple JTC w/white led.

I want to see what effect the plants and Miracle Grow have on the power output.

I’ll keep you posted.
 

Cheers!
Doug

[dcc]

Hi All

I found this on the ANA608.  http://www.g3src.org.uk/newsletr/2009/feb2009.pdf
page 4

Cheers
Doug

[tagor]

Hi All

I found this on the ANA608.  http://www.g3src.org.uk/newsletr/2009/feb2009.pdf
page 4

Cheers
Doug

[jeanna]

@tagor,
Thanks for providing this info. I bet it applies to most of those solar led things. Mine doesn't look like that, but it does have an inductor and cap etc, so ZI be the circuit is similar.

@dcc,
wow
I am glad you are back and doing OK.
I was thinking how the oil spill is more like planetary apendicitis than a burst artery (which someone else had said)  and here you are making it real.
You didn't have to do that!

I love what you have done.
Your lights are nice and bright.

In fact I was NOT surprised when the carbon - mag was not as good as you expected.
I have seen many people say that while carbon has the better voltage numbers, it is not as good mA wise as copper.

I would love to see you put one of those with a 60 inch piece of copper IN A RING and see what happens.
This would be testing 2 things.
The surface area of 5 feet of wire 24 gauge is good enough, and the ring configuration.

I really want someone else to replicate this ring thing. It made the light go on where all a straight wire did was blink it on slowly and pale.
I think this is something new and maybe I stumbled onto something, but someone else needs to try it.

Great stuff,

jeanna