Passivation
     

Passivation is a very thin, high resistant,self-assembled layer formed on the surface of the lithium anode. It is formed as a result of a chemical reaction between the battery electrolyte and the lithium anode. Without the passivation layer, this type of lithium battery would not exist because the lithium would discharge and degrade quite rapidly. An advantage of the passivation layer is it allows the battery to have a very low self discharge rate and extremely long shelf life.
     The most obvious affect of the passivation layer is voltage delay. Voltage delay will occur when a load is placed on the cell as illustrated in the following drawing:
     
     After a load is applied to a cell, the high resistance of the passivation layer causes the cell's voltage to drop rapidily. The discharge reaction slowly removes the passivation layer thereby lowering the internal resistance of the cell. This in turn causes the cell's voltage to reach a peak value which should remain steady if other discharge conditions do not change. If the load increases after the cell's voltage stabilizes, then it may drop again until the passivation layer is fully removed.
     Once the load is removed or lowered, the passivation layer will reform, and voltage delay may be a factor when subsequent loads are applied.

Almost all batteries suffer some kind of paasivation problem some worse then others. Alkaline batteries have a very noticeable effect if they been on the shelf for months when first used they plummet and take many minutes to kick into life.  Google passivation for more info but i had to study this many years ago when developing low power RF solutions using lithium and getting circuits to run on a couple of micro amps. When the circuit is right you can flash an LED and run an RF transmitter on a single AA cell for EIGHT years.

Jack will know about this too i bet he followed a similar design path with his cart locking wheel.

@bolt,

Thank you for the explanation on passivation. Passivation causes a drop in battery voltage when the battery is loaded after a period of storage.  When the battery is loaded the passivation layer will be converted to other material and the battery is then at full capacity again.

See, I learned some new stuff today. 

Thanks,
Groundloop.

@bolt,

Thank you for joining our thread and giving us your opinion. It is sad that you did not illuminate the thread with some good ideas or supportive suggestions since you portrayed yourself as an expert.

If we are to take your advice we should all just eat the gun and forget the whole thing of living/being alive. After all why the hell bother for when it's all a waste of time...right?

The age old advice I'll dispense back to you is if you have nothing good, positive or supportive to say, just keep your mouth shut.

Thanks again !

Hi all;

Regarding the spark gap.

Thought I'd mention one way I found to make an adjustable spark gap a while back.

Break the glass off of a NE2 bulb (use a piece of cloth over the glass and gentle pressure from a pair of needle nose pliers) and then adjust the anode and cathode (to as close as you can get them) and attaching the two leads to the high voltage end.

I found that using a piece of thin paper between the anode and cathode when adjusting the gap you can use the paper as a feeler gauge to get the spacing as close as possible.

The advantage I found of doing this as that the anode and cathode seem not to burn with high voltage compared to other types of metals..

Regards,
Paul

@Goat, @All,

The dielectric strength of air is approximately 3 kV/mm. Lets say we want to make a spark gap
to run our circuit (instead of a transistor). For 3 Volt spark gap the gap itself must be approx. 3um.
Three micro meter is 3mm / 1000. Do you think it is possible to make such a small spark gap with
your neon bulb method?

Thanks,
Groundloop.