Ian:

Great to see you back and feeling a bit better.  I too am glad that Mr. Hutchinson went open source on this.  I am looking forward to seeing your experiments.

@ Nick:

Great job on the cement cell.  I believe you are running the led direct from the cell correct?  Have you tried a JT circuit on it to improve output light and/or longevity?  I am sorry if you have answered this before, I am finding it hard to keep up with all of the topics I am interested in.

@ All:

I think that any type of free energy, no matter how large or small, is a very good thing.  If it is small now, I firmly believe most of these devices I am aware of can be scaled up.  Imagine a 55 gallon drum cement cell with a 4" OD copper rod in the center?  Imagine 100 of these connected in series and or parallel?  So, we have to crawl before walking and running and I, for one, am very glad we have real experimenters here sharing their work and results.

Bill

the problem is you're dealing with kilowatts or megawatts you are dealing in milliwatts. very puny results.

take a look at your posts all very negative just like desertphile and
for some time photovoltaic had critics they were completely wrong.

   capacitor can cell connected to a Jt:

  I have explained in other threads that the reason that the cement cells never run out, is because they are not the source of the energy, anymore than solar cells is.
  The reason that they lose some of the output,  is due to them losing their ability to conduct the current after a while, instead of what appears as they are draining in voltage and current. Although they can and do hold or store some power, they are not just like a battery, or a normal capacitor either , but more like a permanent output higher farad capacitor, with some battery holding ability. 
  I am disappointed in both their ability to be not be able to be placed in parallel, as well as there diminishing output.  But, they are still lighting my house every night, as night lights.   
  The only way to improve on the results up to now,  is to stay with it...

I've been think very critically about these cells and have listed the problems that we must solve first as to eliminate the galvanic reaction and what it brings.

-Water: Water has got to the biggest thing with these cells as water causes a galvanic reaction.

Concrete; Concrete by itself is corrosive due to the limestone in it and the fact the concrete doesn't dry clear can't show us the inner workings of the plates to see if they're corroding or not. Plus Concrete can take months to dry, we need something faster.

Dissimilar metals: This one is a tricky one as the dissimilar metals are key to getting a potential. Using the same metals does give a voltage so that shows that the energy we're seeing is not 100% galvanic.

Using containers such as soda cans: Using containers like soda cans helps to trap the water in as it can not evaporate. If you think about it water thats been spread out over a surface will evaporate faster than water in a soda can.


The solutions that I have come up with so far...
-I've replaced Concrete with Elmer's glue, its cheap, already has the right amount of water in it, dries clear, and most importantly it dries much faster!
 
-As for a container I don't use one. What I find best is to spread the glue over a flat surface but not just any flat surface but notebook paper. The notebook paper will actual absorb the water thats in the glue out and away from the cell. Also spreading the glue out on the paper allows it to dry faster.
 
-Using just glue will not work, when it dries it makes a very good dielectric. The best things to add to the glue are salts. Table salt has work really well but it is very corrosive so its not best to use table salt. Adding Potassium Chloride and Epsom Salt to the glue and mixing it in works best. The crystals of the salts make the cell more conductive. Its the crystals that we're after as they produce they produce the energy we need (ions).

-I also use small plates, wires actually. I could get more amps if I use bigger plates but its the voltage that you want.

-Also I don't try to hook a load directly to the cell, but instead hook a capacitor to it instead. When you do this you can see a very interesting effect. If you take a cell that only produces 500mV and hook it to a capacitor with less voltage in it than that of the cell the capacitor will charge up above the original 500mV to something like 600mV.


With these small improvements I edge closer to a non galvanic reaction.

  @ b_rads:
   Thank you for your PM.  I thought that I would post your video link here as well, for all to see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id3tL2iI0Vw
   This video does seam to have some merit and relation to what we are trying to understand. 
   In our case with the cells, I don't think that the reason that they function is mainly due to a galvanic chemical reaction, although there are some similarities when compared to galvanic batteries, and as to why they lose power. 
   

The Elmer's glue, potassium chloride, and Epsom salt cells are doing very well. These cells are placed on notebook paper and the notebook paper seems to absorb the water out and away from the cells. The crystals are drying very nicely. The best part of these cells is that they keep the voltage they start out with and take shorting out very well. They all start out around 560mV when first made and stay at that voltage even when they have dried. Giving them a load the voltage does go down but allowing the cell to rest brings the voltage back to where it was. The most amazing part of this cell is that it starts off at 560mV and when it dries it stays at 560mV, I never seen a cell do that. I also use copper and aluminium wires as my plates.

Very creative idea with the glue.  Does your output increase at all when placed in the sunlight or heated up a bit? Can these be placed in series or parallel?  Would the voltage increase if you made a large one?

Sorry for all of the questions but this is very interesting.

Bill

G'day all.

Got home from work at 7:30 last night and by 8:30 had duplicated JH's cell from his video. I made one change and that was using germanium instead of galena. Using his ad hoc method I used 1 scoop ( tsp) RS, 2 scoops ES, pinch of calcium carbonate ( as powdered calcite), silver filings and Iron pyrites.
The test strip was primed with thick Sodium silicate.

Good fluid mix when hot, easy to work with. Initial voltage after a 12V charge was 1.54 volts. This of course reduced over time and was 1.47V after 18 minutes. The actual surface area of the copper and zinc electrodes was a mere 1.5 square mm so the cell cured and dried very quickly. The voltage recovery time after a short  was about 45 seconds. This cell was then placed on the data logger overnight. At 05:05 am the voltage was down to 1.05V but had stayed at that for the previous 7 hours.

I made a second test strip at the same time using the same batch of ingredients only this time I added 1 grain of copper sulphate. This had the effect of changing significantly the cells characteristics. The initial charge voltage was higher , 1.64V. It held this voltage for a short time and then dropped to below cell 1.  1.02V vis 1.16V after 1 hour.  The cell is highly temperature sensitive and seems to have a critical temperature of 19.1 oC where it's voltage rises sharply.

The copper sulphate cell was put on the load test.  I've described the rig in an earlier post but basically a 1.8Kohm load is switched across the cell for 7 seconds and then allowed to recover for 40 seconds and the cycle repeats. I ran the load test overnight. In the morning the voltage was 0.51V. Not bad for a cell so small. At that point I took it off the load test and let it recover. After 35 minutes it's voltage had recovered to 1.05V, the same as cell 1.
Cell 1 is now on the load test and I'll see the results of that tonight when I get home.

What I have just done is to verify JH methods and ingredients and they appear to work.

@ ib,  on 9th July I made a cell that contained 3.3g of powdered uranium glass. I thought the radiation bit would interest you.

The cell was a variation on the RS/ES cell and also contained pyrites and sodium silicate. The mix hardens to a tough ceramic and holds it's voltage well. The uranium content of the glass is about 2%. The cell has a very high internal resistance and the voltage drops to near zero under load but rebounds after a few seconds. It too is highly temperature sensitve. I cannot say for sure whether the uranium glass is aiding the voltage but it recovers faster than most cells that i have built. The radiation coming from it is about  20 times background so don't put it in your mouth.

Ok thats about it for now, I'll have more results tomorrow.

Keep at it guys.

regards  Ian.