PLEASE READ THIS-MAJOR BREAK THRU FROM BILL MEHESS

[CuriousChris]

Nothing new since October. I did some catching up as I hadn't read the last few posts or seen bill's vid. it is now obvious it is a galvanic action. that's not to say that's a bad thing.

A new cheap form of battery power would be great.

Did you know the reason eveready stopped producing the old drycell battery used in antique phones was because they never went flat! The company could not sell enough new batteries so they took them off the market. At least that's what I was told by an old timer when I joined Telecom in Australia back in the late 70's. Its not that the batteries were OU or anything like that. it's just they had so much material in them and so well designed, they would take many years to degrade to the point of unusable.

Bills battery is almost definately galvanic. There are so many sources of potential chemical action.

1/ the water is it pure? tap water will have salts and minerals. it may not have a balanced ph
2/ even when the clips are out of water the water may be travelling (wicking) through the paint to the clips
3/ the paint itself may made from materials which have dissimilar metals and other elements such as salts.
4/ moisture in the air may contribute to the galvanic action.

Its actually quite hard to rule out  environmental effects when you are dealing in very low currents. Because a voltmeter has very high impedance you can create a potential across the leads quite easily. just touching the leads with your fingers is enough. 

25c for the materials is actually quite expensive when you think about it. I currently pay 24c per KW/h (residential tarrif). at 0.3v one would need to draw 3,333 Amps for an hour to get the equivalent.


Good luck anyway Bill. I hope my observations prove to be wrong in this case.


CC

[Google]

Dug up a whole mountain and what I found ? Just a small rat. 

Best,

[bugler]

(nothing to say. I thought this was a new thread but then I saw it was an old one)

[dieter]

Google, always read the first and last post first...


That said, one of them "dry-piles" ("Duluc" ?) would be a nice project. Almost like a nuclear battery.


Regards

[Google]

Nice tip. Thanks Sir dieter.