Crystal Power CeLL by John Hutchison

[sutra]

Hi there,
there is a study on the poling characteristics of the rochelle salt that suggest a better polarisation between 2 KHz to 20KHz. Hutchinson himself to polarizing his cells mentioned high voltage and a "very clean signal". I'm building something to drive a car ignition coil to push voltage to a 20 KVDC continuous at 20KHz frequency.
I really think that more than the components ratios that can be figured out with different trials, I think that to make the cells give off some usable output, we have to work on serious polarization.

Some websites about piezoelectric materials production talk about the application of up to 50 KVDC per square centimeter to pole properly their piezo actuators.

If you want, I can give you the website address of the friend from which I get electronic developing plans that really work and a very good assistance.


Cheers to all

[Koen1]

Yeah, well... Hutchison has said several different things...
In most of his text references he simply says to use high voltage DC during
the solidification phase. In his "Invent this!" tv footage he said high voltage DC
again. In the radio interview in which Feynman managed to ask a few questions,
he was even asked if it needed to be pulsed or continuous, and then he
first seemed to indicate he used high volage pulses, but then a couple
of minutes later he was adamant that it needs to be clean DC again.

In general he has talked about using hV DC quite often and only now and then
said something different...
But I don't recall him giving any info about frequencies used... So I never thought
and still don't think he's using any frequencies, I think he's using simple
hV DC, straight.

Another thing... You're talking about using a spark plug to generate 20 KV DC,
continuous, yet not continuous at the same time, since you're using 20 KHz...
How do you have a continuous direct current if you're pulsing it? Then it's not
continuous anymore, is it?
Seems to me there's a very clear difference between continuous current,
and pulses of direct current.

Aside from that, do you have, or perhaps you have a link or something, an explanation
as to why pulsed DC would have a better effect on the polarisation?
I've tried to come up with a good theoretical explanation as to why this would be,
and although I have a few ideas that might explain it to a degree, it still seems
much more sensible that polarisation would work better using a continuous DC
and not using pulses...
Is the pulsing not simply used to limit the total energy use for polarisation?
(As in pulsing hV DC every x milliseconds costs less energy than actually running
the same hV DC continually.) I'm just wondering...
After all, it seems a little bit like saying that pushing the gas pedal every second
will make the car speed up more than just keeping it floored... See what I'm
saying?

[ian middleton]

G'day all,

As far as the polarization issue goes I'm of the opinion that we need in the range of 20kV to 50kV DC before we start seeing a true crystal battery effect. Preferably 100kV DC. T T Brown used such high voltages as did JH. There is a case however ,I think, for pulsed HVDC. When curing a cell it may be advantagous to start off with pulsed HVDC then to finish it off with straight DC. I am of course talking about Electrostactic Polarization, that is a high tension electric field across the cell and not a current.

Since I've been using ES polarization none of my cell have gone the a reversal stage and each have shown slightly higher current output.

At the moment I'm designing a thinner cell to take advantage of the voltage gradient that I have available, which is 6-7kV. I'll be rolling that one out shortly.

@sutra: If you feel that pulsed polarization may work the please go ahead and try it. Every experiment in this field is valuable. The results you get may be very valuable to us all. 

@Koen1: I take it theres still no news from you know who? 

Ok you mottley crew, back to work. Theres 50 million toys that need batteries for Christmas. Now get to it. 

Ian

[AbbaRue]

I can see a great difference between using a HVDC current and a HV static field.
The HVDC will do a lot of arcing inside the cell causing heating and possible separation of elements.
Eg. Salt will separate into sodium and chlorine.  I don't think this is what we want.
Whereas a good HV static charge could cause as electret to form on cooling.
I think the electret concept is what we are looking for here.

[Koen1]

G'day all,

As far as the polarization issue goes I'm of the opinion that we need in the range of 20kV to 50kV DC before we start seeing a true crystal battery effect. Preferably 100kV DC. T T Brown used such high voltages as did JH. There is a case however ,I think, for pulsed HVDC. When curing a cell it may be advantagous to start off with pulsed HVDC then to finish it off with straight DC. I am of course talking about Electrostactic Polarization, that is a high tension electric field across the cell and not a current.

Yes, we theorised that that would probably be the case, and clearly it is. Seems it was a good idea to try electrostatic instead of direct polarisation eh?

(@AbbaRue: indeed, the difference between electrostatic - and direct current polarisation is obvious, you are entirely correct about that. Direct application of
DC will cause elecrons to be injected into the Cell material, flow through it, and then exit it, causing not just seperation of different valence atoms, but also
ion migration and electron exchange by ionic "shuttling" of charge. This can cause constant movement of the charge carriers which can and very often does
disrupt the formation of desired internal structures. Electrostatic polarisation will not do this, no additional electrons are injected nor pass through the material,
it is the atoms of which the material is composed that act as the charged particles and they seperate according to the electrostatic field, and should mostly
stay "locked" in that position as the static charge is maintained and the material solidifies. And that results in ordered, polarised dielectric material, a.k.a.
Electrets. Damn am I happy to have people like you in our group here, who understand what's going on. )

I can imagine how pulsed hV might be advantageous in generating a nice even "spread" of the dopant atoms in just about any material we want to polarise,
but I still have some trouble getting a clear picture of how it would have advantages when used with Rochelle Salt for example...
If you or anyone else could clear this up I would be grateful.

Since I've been using ES polarization none of my cell have gone the a reversal stage and each have shown slightly higher current output.

Well in my experiments the output is not really terribly much higher, that increase seems marginal at best, but indeed the reversal effect seems to
disappear. It should, and it does. Nice. And also cool that we figured this out while JH apparently still has the reversal effect... hehe

At the moment I'm designing a thinner cell to take advantage of the voltage gradient that I have available, which is 6-7kV. I'll be rolling that one out shortly.

Great stuff. In relation to a totally different experiment I've been planning I was considering to buy a small plasma generator which should also be able to produce
into the several kilovolts DC, and I am increasingly tempted to go ahead with the purchase... Despite the financial troubles everywhere...

@sutra: If you feel that pulsed polarization may work the please go ahead and try it. Every experiment in this field is valuable. The results you get may be very valuable to us all. 

Oh yes, Sutra, please don't think that I mean to keep you from using pulsed DC eh, I'm just saying that I presently don't have a clear picture of how that
would add anything, but I am only human and like Ian says every experiment in our field here is valuable, so please do try it and please do post your
results!

@Koen1: I take it theres still no news from you know who? 

Nope, as usual you know who is incommunicado. Sure hope he's getting some
good info from Paris eh?

Ok you mottley crew, back to work. Theres 50 million toys that need batteries for Christmas. Now get to it. 

LOL
Well I'm not sure if we can make all of those 50 million toys batteryless, but we can at least try
Just to cut some corners I'm now working on several formulas for artificial tourmaline, and should be able to start
baking experiments in a month. Aiming for 1mm thick slices, but with baking you're never very sure eh.