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[Localjoe]

So i took a wack at something i thought was going to be wild but i deff had to satisfy my curiosity,   Go stick a small copper pipe or piece of sheet copper like 5 inches or so in the ground, then take a steel screw stick it in the ground about a foot away from the copper and tell me the voltage/ current you get. Copper being positive steel being negative.  I got 1.5 v ac or around .9 v dc and i cant tell the current but its in the hundreds of micro amps, charges ac cap real quick....  I Found out two ideas that will help people.   First stick your copper in the ground, make an imaginary circle in your head using the copper as the center and plop the steel skrew in around the perimeter of this circle walk the whole 360 degrees and try the skrew in the ground every so often.  My conclusion is polar alignment deff makes a difference and produces more voltage and current give how the metals are placed... Doing it near tree roots also had a significant impact on current being higher but no real impact on the voltage.  If the freq of this ac power was fast enough, i guess my question is could i step it up to something useful, mabey just enough to make a small solonid motor with flywheel or alternator of sorts to make additional power. Ideas folks ? I haven't tried putting coils on the metal directly to try Stubblefield stuff i wanted to start basic but the crazy part is these two peices of metal can be separated like at least 10 feet and they still form a circuit, or register voltage on my meter, pretty cool. I also found out that i could run a battery in series, plus of battery to - steel screw, copper pipe to load + and the - term on the battery to the loads - terminal, still lit the led which means its deff possible to use the ground as a conductor of sorts at least across a reasonable space of land.

Weird thing.. my analog shack meter shows the ac while my digital doesent but when i tap the probe on the copper or steel  it registers a little....

[Localjoe]

I forgot to mention this is working in a ceramic pot with a small basil plant in it as well, who woulda knew and its on the wood deck so about 4 feet off the ground level.  Not as much current compared to being in the actual ground

[Pirate88179]

@Localjoe:

I would think a lot would depend on the type of soil and mineralization of the ground where someone lives as to how well, or if, this might work.  A chemistry teacher of mine once showed us that your mouth is actually a battery under the correct conditions....ie chewing on a piece of aluminum foil.

I don't know if you know who Art Bell is....now retired famous host/creator of the Coast to Coast a.m. radio show...well, he is really big into ham radio and he reported that at his Nevada location, he strung up a "super" antenna in an array that was very large and supported off the ground on poles driven into the ground.  when he went to hook his equipment to it, it started blowing stuff left and right.  He checked the antenna line and had something like 210 volts on it.  He ended up putting some kind of filter on it but he said he was always curious as to where that power was from.  He lives way out in the high dessert and is not near any radio transmitters.

Anyway, this may be related to your phenomenon.  Also, could you not have several setups as you described and hook them in series to raise the voltage to a useful level?  Be pretty cool to recharge your cell phone from the earth, or light some LEDs.

Bill

[Freezer]

You can make a low power battery using tap water as well as the dirt. I made this a while ago to see if I could light a led.  The amps are no good though for powering larger stuff.

http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/7892/wc1ki4.jpg
http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/737/wc2ax4.jpg

This guy gets a good spark from falling water.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY1eyLEo8_A

[Pirate88179]

@ Freezer:

The last link you posted from youtube is a great lecture series.  I enjoyed watching it and am going to look for the others.  Thanks.

Bill

[Pirate88179]

@Localjoe:

I am considering trying the pipe in the ground effect that you described.  Would this be enough to light a very small LED?  I wonder how many pipes you could put in a certain area and how far from each other they might have to be to still work.  I would love to hear more about your experiment.  Thanks.

Bill

[Localjoe]

Hey Bill,
           Tye Pipe wasn't that long at all and diameter is about quarter inch or so not half tho. I'll take a pic of that and the skrew i used for it.  What still boggles me is why my meters are telling me different things about the ac voltage, Im betting the analog one is right either way, but im going to get a new digital one soon so i'll try that to make sure. Moral of the story is that the analog meter showed upwards of 1.5 v ac and about .8 v dc. Digital showed the dc but not the ac. 

[Pirate88179]

@Localjoe:

Hey, I just tried this tonight and, right out of the box I obtained .88 volts dc.  I used a cleaned copper pipe, 1/2 inch dia. x 8" long, stuck in the ground about 4".  I used a zinc coated screw, about 1" long sutck in about halfway along the true north south axis with the copper pipe being the north.  I moved it around some and got .94 vdc for the best number thus far.

I just watched a video on youtube where this guy built a coil setup like they did in the 1800's and all he got was .88 vdc.  I am going to research this more and try many different experiments with various materials.  This was all I had handy at the time.  I am going to try the tree suggestion as this was mentioned several times in the google search articles that I read.  I just can't believe that I got this high a number on the first several attempts.  I am thinking now about two copper pipes in series with two screws...will this give out 1.88 vdc?  You were correct Joe in that it does make a difference where, and how deep/shallow you put the screw.  Deeper gave slightly lower readings.  A little to the left, or right also lowered the readings.  I would be very interested to learn of yours, and others experiments in this area.  I had no intenetion of trying this as I am working on other projects right now, but this was an interesting break and it works, right off the bat.  Keep me posted please.

Bill

[Pirate88179]

This is so easy to replicate and experiment with I propose that everyone should try it.  We can compare readings and techniques.  I'll bet, with a little imagination, it won't take long before we get the volts up there.  Afterall, an AA battery is only 1.5 volts so, this is free and possible maybe to hook up an array in series for useful energy.  Free.  I am so excited by this I will have trouble sleeping until I can play some more.

Bill

[ken_nyus]

I think the voltage will be dependent on the galvanic difference of the metals used.

This is basically a battery using the wet soil as the electrolyte, right?

I love the idea of just putting rods in the ground and getting some electricity.