Crystal Power CeLL by John Hutchison

[mrbr00k5]

@Everyone

I made a new cell since the aluminum, carbon, one died. I'm now using a zinc container and carbon rod, I'm experimenting with common cooking alum as an ingredient. I'm keeping a log of the cell performance over a few days and then I'll post it. So far it's doing well, around 1.2 volts and 1.14 Milli-Amps. I hope it doesn't suddenly drop. I have quit using the sealant for the moment, since i've made 3 cells with it, and each of them seems to put out low voltage, about 300 milli-volts. The sealant cells do seem to be true crystal cells though, as they slowly climb in power. The current cell I'm watching is able to run a joule thief quite well. We'll see how it develops. It is environmentally sealed, and I have it in a small bag with some silica-gel, to hopefully pull moisture out of it. I got a little Bismuth Das, and it does seem to be better than copper as an electrode. Sadly though, I'm already out, I only got a little piece, I've gotta get some more. Your idea of using the crystals that form on old batteries is quite interesting, I'm gonna try that. Anyway, I'll post in a day or so with the measurements of the Alum cell. Good Luck everyone!

[jeanna]

Hi all,
Since ian hasn't been around lately to say this, I would like to mention that his best performers, in the past at least, spend a good amount of time in the freezer.... like a month.

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To me that means a very slow sublimation rather than ordinary evaporation.
Sublimation is changing state from frozen to gas without passing through the liquid state.
It might leave the frozen crystal shape in tact that way.
If I remember right, his best one which ran a watch for over (a year?) was frozen like this.

I am suggesting that you go back and read his posts (easy to find in his profile) because he generally gave a good description of what he did.

jeanna

[mscoffman]

...
So far it's doing well, around 1.2 volts and 1.14 Milli-Amps. I hope it doesn't suddenly drop.
...

@mrbro00k5

That's excellent...I'm hoping that these are xtal cells, me along with you.
Congrats on running the Jt JouleThief circuit.

@All

Jeanna's idea the Ian was freezing his cell's and then taking measurements
is an excellent idea too. Ions, I suppose, would depress the freezing point
of water, but if ions can't migrate they can't contribute to conductivity.
One could look for a ratio of decrease in power with absolute temperature
in case crystal cells are Maxwell's Demons using thermal energy.

@das a load of bullspit

You will need to try to get some *power* measurements along
with the excellent voltage measurements you are taking. How
much current through a resistor load is the question. Voltage is a
part of the power equation but not all. If the internal resistance
of the cell is high it might have good open circuit voltage but not
drive a reasonable load resistor without temporarily dropping. It
would come back very fast once unloaded.

I also think your idea of an Web internet video showcase for crystal
batteries is an excellent one. People could display their batteries
doing something 24/7 along with a card containing the recipe. Kind
of like the County Fair/Olympics of petrolithic batteries. I can pretty
much guarantee if you would do this, this area of study would eventually
go "mainstream".

Eventually we would want to monitor these cells at their maximum
power point which is a dynamic measurement.

:S:MarkSCoffman

[conradelektro]

Greetings to the experimenters in this thread!

This is my first post and I want to report a strange cell (which is probably well known in this forum). I got the idea while reading through this thread and from videos on YouTube about aluminium-concrete-copper cells.

The Cell:

0,3 mm Copper sheet 120 x 120 mm
2 mm tile cement
0,5 mm Aluminium sheet with little holes 120 x 120

The cell on various resistors:

A Voltmeter shows 1.17 to 1.18 Volt over the cell (no load), copper +, aluminium â€"

Over a 10 Ohm resistor on the cell a Voltmeter shows 22 mV rapidly sinking.

Over a 100 Ohm resistor on the cell a Voltmeter shows 157 mV rapidly sinking.

Over a 1 K Ohm resister on the cell a Voltmeter shows 0.96 Volt constantly.

On may conclude that the cell delivers about 1 mA and holds about 1 Volt when it delivers the 1 mA.

With a simple Joule Thief (red LED) on the cell the Voltage drops to 0.53 Volt.

The Joule Thief delivers 1.62 Volt spikes over the red LED with a frequency of about 120 KHz.

An endurance test (with the Joule Thief) is under way. Results will be reported in a few days. So far the Joule Thief is on the cell for some hours and holds steady.

The cell was built two days ago and because the cement looked dry today in the evening it was hooked up to a Voltmeter, various resisters and finally to the little Joule Thief.

Conrad

[mscoffman]

Greetings to the experimenters in this thread!

This is my first post and I want to report a strange cell (which is probably well known in this forum). I got the idea while reading through this thread and from videos on YouTube about aluminium-concrete-copper cells.

Conrad

@conradelektro

Hello, nice to see you here;

These cement cells are interesting, but cement is both ionic and permeable
to water. As I often have seen the steel re-bar reinforcement bars used
inside concrete to strengthen it suffer from rusting when inside cement
structures. Sometimes rust is used as a type of steel coating to resist
further damage. As anhydrous alcohol absorbs water from the air I
suspect these batteries absorb needed water from the air to power
themselves.

So I wonder about the fundamental permanence of these batteries.
I suspect crystal petrolitic batteries are truly chemical reaction
free and permanent. Perhaps you could attempt to communicate
with the users showing the cement batteries on youtube and find
out about their long term disposition. He seemed to show some cells
linked into batteries in the 96Volts DC range. It would be neat to
have a 70Volt battery directly operating an NE2 neon bulb built
as a relaxation oscillator permanently blinking away. Depending
on what "permanently" means.

:S:MarkSCoffman