phatty mo wrote:
wrote:
phatty mo wrote:
Wow,I had thought about those little multi-compartment boxes,but I
didn't think a "simple cell" that size would have any real juice to it..
I have a couple here i could play with.
Think what a dry cell that size can do.
500ma? really? Nice!
Yes I was surprised how powerful it was.
What did you use for electrodes and an electrolyte,just sal****er?
salt water electrolyte, carbon and steel electrodes. The carbon doesnt
corrode, but the steel does, and rapidly.
4 inch diameter PVC,maybe 3-4 feet long,with a copper pipe inside of a
steel pipe,inside of the PVC pipe?
holy ---, what are you going to power off this thing?
In short,as much as I can!
Never mind AA and D cells, I can imagine people walking into shops, and
asking for Triple Z cells please.
What would it really produce?
Mine was 1" wide, 0.5" deep, and I made no attempt to get max electrode
area into there.
Yours is 4" wide, 48" long... so you've got 4^2 x 48/0.5 times the
voolume there. Thats 1526x as big. So you should get around 700A at 1v.
0.7kW per cell, so yes you really could heat the place on a set of
those.
Now design them properly so you get optimised electrode areas to
electrolyte capacity, and youre likely looking at 2 or 3 thousand amps.
Dont even think about shorting one of those!
If the power goes out,and my main battery bank is drained,or i'm not
near it (away from home)it would be nice to have a 12V battery I could
run some lights,and a radio or something off of.A large capacity would
be a good thing.
Ha, reckon youre a few orders of magnitude OTT there
10AH is just a starting point,if I could I'd like to build a (say)
50-100AH version. (the equiv of a car battery or two.)
Well yours would be what, say 1000A for 10 hrs... 10,000 Ah
Maybe run some CFL lights from an inverter in the house or something for
a day or two?
Perhaps the TV for a bit? My PC?
CB radio,scanner,cellphone charger,etc..?
Yours would more like light the town, power the local cinema, power the
university computing department, and the local radio transmitter.
whats needed is to scrape the electrode, not add salt. A steel bristled
brush works, but of course will corrode away rapidly itself.
Well,i was thinking of storing the battery "Dry" untill needed (and
possibly draining/rinsing it after use) that way the electrodes won't
dissolve away in the meantime..
yes, thats necessary.
So to use it,you'd pour sal****er (or other electrolyte) in there,and
connect a load.
Agitation is a good point though. I wonder if a small air pump would
help..maybe put a "bubble stone" for aquariums in the bottom of each
cell to help keep the electrolyte mixed,and help knock the 'crust' off
the plates?
Well, I don know what you'll use, but with steel the crust was attached
pretty hard. An angle grinder would make more progress than an airstone
if youre using steel.
right, but bear in mind its not just salt water once its used. You'll
have FeCl in there as well, if you use steel.
Ahh,yes..good point.
Actually,I wonder..if FeCl could be useful for etching printed circuit
boards. ;-) (I believe thats what is used as an etchant?)
yes, but it wont be anywhere near strong enough. Least mine wasnt after
1 day anyway.
NT