Hi there timmy1729

your post seems interesting on trying the copper coils give it a try  and see what your results are

back this way just using the circuit out of a garden solar light setup  this setup runs through a grove of

trees  could be helping with the brightness from the led.

@ timmy1729
By all means, try the copper wire in the earth and see what you get back out, I think you will get something but not much.
Make sure you have another metal as a negative also.

A HB High Brightness LED takes more voltage and current to work than the usual green LED as found in pc cases, the green LED would light up before a RED or HB Led. If you need a green led, visit your local PC repair man and ask him if he could spare one off a old 386 or 486 case etc, 

@ nightshade, I just picked up a Adj PowSupply 0-30v 0-20amps for $165 at Disk Smith, they had $100 discount on it. whackoooo
my old PSU went down about a month ago. Now I can get back into the experementing again.

@all
Over the past week, the output from the Cu and Carbon rods have been getting higher, still not enough to light any leds, but the needle on my modified anolog meter is pinned to the right, it really snapps over to full on and bounces off the stopps.



~|~~~~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|~~~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~     ~ = ground
   |fe        | pb                                                                          |c     |cu
   |______|__________(0)neg  wire to house                               | +    | +  seperate wires to house


fe plate is iron/steel is connected to pb lead disk as the earth or negative
c Carbon rods (5)  and  cu Copper plate are seperate + pos

Hope the above made sence to U all


@timmy1729
If you have a junk yard man, have a talk to him, these people usually don't mind people scavenging around to see if there is an old meter laying about, I have got a couple here I freed up the movement to get it working, take a look at some of the last 5 posts.

There is a storm brewing here so I better get this off
jim

@nightshade & electricme
Can I make the coil like a cork-screw and just leave one end of the coil in the ground and hook up the other end or do I need to make it in a solenoid style and set it in the ground horizontally and solder the two ends together that stick out of the ground? Also, the copper wire has that plastic/rubber/whatever insulation. Do I need to strip it first or can I just wind the coil with the insulation intact?

@ Jim:

I hope you are well.  Did you see my post on the Stubblefield topic about my new Joule Thief's?  If not, let me know and I can post here.  A very simple (and very cheap) circuit to build.  I got designs from instructables and metacafe.  I can light a very very bright (28,500 mcd) 10mm super bright led (requires 3.5-4 volts) with an old AA bat. (1.5 volts)  I have not tried it outside yet but I want to hook it to my carbon rod/magnesium set-up.  My guess is it will light this led brightly and possibly, I can add several more.

I think this is a great way for folks that are not quite getting enough juice to light an led to get to light an led.  It is a nice feeling of accomplishment to actually light something up from the ground.  I am not sure when I can try this but I will report on both topics my results.  I just bought another transistor (2N3904-NPN) so I will make another circuit.  I want to try two in series and possibly parallel.  I will try to post some photos here, don't know if it will work or not.
If anyone is interested, I will post the links to the joule thief circuit.  My total cost was about $4.00 including the high priced super bright led from Radio Shack.

Bill                 PS The photo with it lit is NOT from my earth battery, it is running on an old single AA battery.

timmy1729 and  electricme

was wondering about the readings on my cheap digital multimeter and seeing as those white leds

need about 3 volts and up I went and attached my analogue meter to the copper pipe and zinc plate in

the ground they are about four feet apart and set it to the 2.5 volts setting


and the needle went  right up to over 3 volts hovering half way between 3 and 4 volts that digital meter

only has a 20 volt setting at it`s lowest so im getting more volts then I thought I was  first i tested this

by attaching a 1.5 volt battery and the needle went to just a tad over 1 volt so out with the digital

I think im going to trust the needle meter more in the future .