Water battery

[The Eskimo Quinn]

quite right, the reaction, is galvanic for want of a more scientific description, and let us spare you the long experiments.

let us say your "battery" did indeed gain in voltage as you "fill your large buckets with water and metal" place them in series or whatever. it is

1) still a battery that has a life Span as the reaction dies due to various reactions, ferric will rust others will simply develop coatings of calcium and the like destroying the effect.

2) the cost of such batteries over lead is way over the top, your only benefit is that water is cheaper than the original acid. so its a more expensive battery with less output, and more energy to produce high end metals than lead which requires very little from lead based ore etc, so is also not environmentally friendly.

3)and most importantly, the charge from galvanic reactions dissapears in any form of loop that earths, or has high end neutral (large frame structure) so is not constant. albeit when i say not constant, if you lift out the metal and place it back in, the reaction will restart for as much as a few seconds. So your 10 amp winch to lift your milliamp producing battery, kinda ends the point of the exercise.

4) and most importantly as seems to be missed in all of the battery posts here is self discharge especially on rechargeable batteries. leave a batterry connected to any device not turned on and it will discharge at over ten times the rate as one in your kitchen drawer. a good example is the top of the range Sony battery charger for 1.5 (1.2 actually) AA batteries, the moment they are fully charged the device stops, and they start to discharge, leave them in the sony charger turned on but untouched for a week and they will be all but flat. diode switching does not work,it is the connection of the batteries to metal surfaces on each end. actually a good science experiment is to get say six batteries take three and tape a 1 foot wire to each contact of three of them, (do not let the other ends of the wires touch each other or any other items) and lay them on a table for a week next to the other three and measure the levels, if using rechargeables, the ones with the wires will be nearly flat, believe it or not the next worst performer for this problem is the brand new mighty lithium batteries. contact without current flow still causes loss of charge. Even galvanic batteries suffer this problem now add number 4 to number 5

5) volts give you the jolts but amps give you the cramps. you can actually get 240 volt from a battery at 1 milliamp, without amperage (actual power)your voltage readings mean nothing.

Hans is correct, but i say put the metal contacts into the potplant beside you and drink the beer, you will at least feel a charge.

(although we could change the energy rating stickers on appliances to buckets i suppose Hey dude check out my new 350 bucket IPOD

[The Eskimo Quinn]

Although you'll have to move to acerage land if your sister wants an IPOD too 

[nightlife]

The Eskimo Quinn. my experiment has to do with frequency's. I have proven that a flat piece of metal creates more voltage then a round piece of the same height and weight. I did the same test using a potato and with a nail I got .44 volts but with the flat piece I got .98 volts. They were both 3.5 inches long and both are galvanized but the nail was heavier which tells me the nail contained more steel then the plate did but yet the plate created more voltage.

I understand about the amps but the cell is charging battery's that have set around. My son charged a AAA battery for his Ipod and before it was charged we installed it in his Ipod to make sure it didn't have enough power to operate it and it didn't. We then charged the battery for 15 minutes with the cell and then installed it and it played 10 songs before it went dead. We are now charging it over night to see what the results will be.

I am using this cell as a way to prove my theory of electricity being nothing more then frequency's. I am not using pails of water and I am only using 9oz cups with about 3oz's of water. I have found that flat metal creates more voltage then round metal and that helps prove my theory. I also found that the amount of water makes no difference but the size of the metal plates do. This proves my theory even more. Minerals that are in the water and the potato are absorbing the frequency's that attracted to the plates. I am trying to find out what minerals are and or combination of minerals are absorbing the frequency?s.
John Hutchinson showed he collected certain crystallized rocks and crushed them and stuck them in steel containers with a rod in the middle and got voltage. He claimed that they never die and showed them to run a motor. This is what I am after and as soon as I find the right mixture I think I can perfect the concept better by using plated cells instead of round ones like he used.
This water cell and the potato cell are just the beginning of my experiments and I found them to be the easiest way to test my theory at this time. I will eventually move to solid mineral cells when I figure out which solid minerals work the best.

[hoptoad]

If so, are you able to provide a link to it ? I'm very curious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY1eyLEo8_A&feature=related

@Freezer
Thanks for the link - Intriguing stuff I must say!
Cheers from the Toad who Hops

[jeanna]

Nightlife,
How much copper is exposed from the insulated copper wire on each end?
Is it that insulated copper wire the thick stranded hook up wire?
Also, please, how big is the sheet metal? I assume if it is duct metal that it is galvanized with zinc?

thanks,
jeanna