EER Joule Thief using an earth battery to start a joule thief.

[jeanna]

Hi pegasus,
I am still trying to get enough power from my eer to light more than 1 white led.

If you go to the joule thief 101 thread, you can see some entries I made to help people get started working with the joule thief.
You probably need to get a bunch of magnesium ribbon since that has jump started many projects that were languishing.

I suggest looking at lasersaber's youtube channel. He was able to get well over what you will need to do what you are trying to accomplish.
But also check out lidmotor's latest videos esp the mosquito.

I am making a copper pipe wrapped with magnesium today to see how much I can get from it and I will report about that somewhere.

In my plant batteries, 60 inches of magnesium ribbon was enough to get me around 8mA into the joule thief for a few weeks, so I think you should plan on more.
I also found that making the wires go in a ring or spiral around the plant enhanced the result.
This is contrary to the N-S wisdom of eer's that dictates that it works better when the wires are on the right line. So, check out putting the wires in a ring around the plants.

And, let us know.

jeanna

[jeanna]

Hi all,
This is short.
I made the barber pole today using a copper pipe instead of carbon, and about 60 inches of magnesium as lidmotor showed in yesterday's video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsiOyw3IrN0

Copper should not work as well as carbon, but it is much less expensive and easier to get than a piece of carbon that has the same diameter.
So, I used a 3/4 inch pipe which I sanded and wrapped in cotton cloth then wrapped that in densely wound magnesium ribbon, about 60 inches, and it works very well.
I also put a drop of oil onto the magnesium where it is exposed to the air, as lidmotor suggests.
This is very convenient and also portable battery.
I expect it to work very well in the earth too.
The price is right too. It is easy to pay $8 for a 75 foot roll which can make 15 of these.

jeanna

[NickZ]

  Jeanna:
   I just showed your new video to my wife today, when she saw it she said,  "Oh, just make that a hole lot bigger". 
      Could this be part of women's intuition?
                                                                 NZ

[jeanna]

Hi NickZ,

There are a few of us working on these and I am the only one of my gender (that I know of). 

Can you get some magnesium ribbon?
It is a good price for the life you get as compared to a manufactured battery, so give it a try.
It works best with a joule thief because the joule thief makes so much with such low voltage.
There is a lot more experimenting to do.

I am making these for a few reasons, but the most important right now is to compare it with the plant batteries. THEY lasted a really long time and are going to be hard to beat.
The advantage of these is their portability.

It makes sense to me to have a bunch of both.

thank you,

jeanna

[NickZ]

    @Jeanna:
   Thanks so much for your reply.  I am so totally amazed by the JT, and will definitely try the Barber Pole-Giant JT combo.   That is the direction that I'm walking towards, now. Belive it or not, I will name It:
             -The Mini Hadron-         Ahhhhh,  I can see it now....
      Although,  I may be joking a bit,   I won't be for long...
   
   What do you think of the following idea? 
   Using one (or more) 6 foot long copper grounding rods, covered with cotton, wound with magnesium ribbon, and buried in moist ground or inside a sealed moist 2" PVC pipe?  Then, connected to a version of the JT's big brother, and further wired to a big huge 2 foot TPU style toroid coil, in resonant feed-back mode? 
          Can you forsee any sparks flying?
   My best to you and the JT team, and the barber shop boys.
                                                                                      NZ