Crystal Power CeLL by John Hutchison

[Koen1]

@AbbaRue: lol, that was originally my conviction, but I have in the mean time
adjusted it. I think we can make several slightly different types of crystal cell,
and I do still believe piezoelectric materials can be used, but I also think it's just
one of the materials needed. My reasoning there is that piezos, being sensitive to
pressure differences, might actually "feel" gravitational fluctuations and produce
charges, so that is a potential "input" source. On he other hand, we can also use
pyroelectric materials sensitive to very low IR, and these could use the environmental
heat "input", and we can use microdiodes to rectify microwaves and other e/m,
and we can polarise the material so it acts like an electret...
Nevertheless, I do agree that piezo materials are very interesting in this context.

@All: For your viewing pleasure I shall attach a neat picture of the ingredients and
parts I have used to make a fresh new Hutchison style Cell, according to Johns
own description. I made this Cell yesterday, but I will have to re-melt and re-polarise
the entire thing since my (second hand) high voltage generator has decided to join
the great spirit in the sky during the evening and polarisation was not achieved.
I am now dusting off an old bug-zapper which I intend to use to apply the needed
high voltage during the cooling and curing phase. The picture shows (l.t.r.):
An aluminium can (tube with bottom welded on), a plastic can containing crushed
Iron Pyrites, a plastic can containing crushed Galena, a bowl of Rochelle Salt
(the exact quantity to fill the tube), a small vial of Germanium powder, a vial of small
pieces of Pyrite "Fools Gold", a chunk of Galena crystal, and a pure copper rod.
Construction was according to JH's description: put R.salt in tube, heat tube untill
R.salt has turned liquid, add crushed Pyrite, Galena, and a pinch of Germanium,
stirr very well, stirr while cooling a little, and when it becomes a thick paste,
insert central electrode, connect high voltage source, leave to cool and settle,
when completely cool and hard, remove voltage source. Presto.
(Don't forget to put a strong bucket over the thing during the hV phase,
John claims it is at this point that several of his Cells exploded. )

I have considered adding stuff like crushed Tourmaline but have decided not to
for the time being. First a pure JH-style version, then maybe later add stuff.

Regards!

[ian middleton]

G'day all,

@Koen:  Nice picture.   As always very interested in your results.  Good luck with the JH cell.

@All:  Here at the Canberra branch of Muppet Labs , work has been progressing steadily all week.

4 new cells have been built and there have been a few supprises along the way.
As you know I made a swinging calcium carbonate cell, well it doesn't swing anymore in fact it doesn't do anything anymore. In the bin with it!

The next cell was a bit of a departure from usual cell techniques. For this I made up 2 batches of rochelle based
materials , one doped with iron oxide and the other with gallium plated quartz sand and tourmaline.
Using one of my Al cigar tubes I swilled molten oxide mixture around the inside just to give it a thin coating.
The RS and oxide solidified and produced a good bond with the AL.
With the copper electrode I dunked it in the RS and sand mix and put a coating on the copper. After cooling I gave it a couple more coats. Again when cool I dunked it in the oxide mix. Then sucessively built up alternate layers of sand and oxide. The electrode was then set in place with the bulk of the sand mix.
It's a fiddely process and you need a bit patients. Ah whatever I could never spell that word 

At first the cell would not work  5 mV @ 2 uA was all it could do. Anyway I left it for a few hours and it was only while I was showing jeanna what a brilliant failure it was did it spring to life.  0.891V with a peak current of 6 mA. Under short circuit  the current dropped sharply but did hold at 0.5 mA for 10 to 15 seconds before I unhooked it.
The recovery time for this cell is twice as fast as the others. Overnight on the data logger it flat lined at 0.72V.
It doesn't know it yet but it's about to go on dead short for 24 hours.

The next 2 cells were basically the usual deal, Al tube, copper electrode, RS , sand and slightly different amounts of Iron oxide all mixed together and set in place.  Both have voltages around 0.25V and put out a current >20uA for half an hour.
Once they drop below 20uA they take about 90 mins to recover.

On the 16th of April I made a cell called " cigar1". This was the simplest of the lot. Just an Al tube, coppere electrode, RS and quartz sand for the mix. Nothing more. This cell consistently had OC voltages >0.88V. It could also put out a peak current of 15 mA. Again while discussing it's performance with jeanna I decided to make a small swithing circuit to go across the data logger.
For 7 seconds a dead short was put across the cell and then a recovery time of 40 seconds. This cycling is ongoing and
was started 24 hours ago. I have posted a screen capture of the voltages. The yellow line is the voltage from a "flat plate cell I made this morning, I will talk about that one later.
As you can see (purple trace) the voltage remains stable from short through recovery.

Ok I've got a bit of a mess to clean up so I'll catch you guys later.

Kind regards
Ian

[Koen1]

Update on the new JH style Cell:
Polarisation with the bug zapper done, but one of the fuses in the building
blew during the night and I guess that was the end of the polarisation...
In any case it did not work, the cell did give some output but it was tiny,
around the 0.15V and with a 10kOhm resistor around the 0.5 mA.
Horrible! this is the second time now that the simple polarising procedure
failed due to crappy electrics
I think I've fixed it now, though. I'm hoping to be able to try it again tomorrow.

Oh, I also managed to shock myself while trying to repair my old broken high
voltage generator  great fun but I'd advise not to do it too often. Lol
Fortunately it was only around the 2kV so aside from being a real shocker
it wasn't too nasty.
And I got a nice burn from some of the boiling hot liquid mix of molten R.salt
with metal particles in it, when I stupidly tried to quickly keep the tube
from falling over by using my finger without first putting my thermal gloves on first.
Dumbdumbdumb ouchouchouch
Good thing the old trick of quickly covering your burn in a thick layer of something
like cream or even powdered sugar still works. Had I not done that and put it under
cold water, it would probably look and feel a lot worse.

Anyway, will update when I remelt and repolarise. Again.

[ian middleton]

G'day all,

@Koen:  I thought trying to kill ones self was my domain, but I don't mind sharing. 
We should get together some time, perhaps we could black out a whole city block. 
Anyway keep going with the JH cell, I think you're the only one using germainium around here so
the results should be most interesting.

Right! I'm off to see what damage I can do in the kitchen (lab) and Koen, remember.... Pain Hurts!   

Cya later

Ian

[jeff0516161]

Just thought I would throw something out there...
I had a well dug, mostly through quartz... the result was a huge pile of crushed quartz..
Any of you guys think the crushed quartz could be used to experiment with? If so, any ideas how?