Free energy - battery charger

[Esteban]

The neon lamp and the divider voltage limits the voltage in the union of both resistors in order to 15 V.

[Max]

Originally Posted by Esteban

The neon lamp and the divider voltage limits the voltage in the union of both resistors in order to 15 V.

Hi,
what's that stuff ???

Seems a project for depressed people... the kind who wanna die!

Don't you know that placing such stuff could incinerate an elephant if things go worse ???

I hope people here will not realize they can try such stuff REALLY to charge some battery!

It's like killing a fly with a TSAR-bomba!

You're a natural born killer Esteban!

Kind regards,
Max

[Qiaozhi]

Originally Posted by Esteban

The neon lamp and the divider voltage limits the voltage in the union of both resistors in order to 15 V.

I think even Benjamin Franklin would have thought twice about building that.

[peroon]

Esteban....say; aren't you, by some strange accident, Nikola Tesla's distant relative? Or even better - his direct reincarnation?
Only HE was crazy enough to agitate in clouds and ionosphere !

[Esteban]

If somebody understand Spanish, translated for original Elektor issue, is for indoor uses with short antenna. The drawing only is ilustrative of how can obtaining some ammount of energy. The principle also is used in satellite for solar cells, etc., regarding the publication. Only I share it.

Regards

Esteban

[Max]

Originally Posted by Esteban

If somebody understand Spanish, translated for original Elektor issue, is for indoor uses with short antenna. The drawing only is ilustrative of how can obtaining some ammount of energy. The principle also is used in satellite for solar cells, etc., regarding the publication. Only I share it.

Regards

Esteban

?
en el interior I see that... but...

OK... the electric field gradient is normally 100V/m... so if you have e.g. a 3 floors in your house you have about 10meters to play with... then around 1000V from tip of antenna at your higher floor to zero at ground wire.

Nice... but... the current ?
Have you tested it really in practice ?

I dubt the neon lamp will start glow (the breakdown is around 200V for small neon lamps not 1000V as reported), and I dubt any appreciable current flow can be produced that way.

I guess some maybe picoampere is what you can expect from static field.

Now suppose 10picoampere is the current you can get from there...

And your battery pack is say... 2800mAh...

You could need then 2800/0.00001 = 280,000,000 hours to get them charged... of say 280,000,000 /24 = 11666666.667 days to get full charge

or... 280,000,000/24/365 = 31,963.47 YEARS TO GET A FULL RECHARGE!

Dang... I think that people... will find more suitable locating the antenna above the roof... make a very sharp tip... add some americium-241 maybe... to get some lightening and DIE than waiting so long ice-age-interval for charging that dang batteries !

Or not ?

Kind regards,
Max

[Fred]

But 10pA@1000v, we only need 1.2V.
So divide this by 1000.
Only 32 years.
I want one
now
.

[J_Player]

Originally Posted by Esteban

If somebody understand Spanish, translated for original Elektor issue, is for indoor uses with short antenna. The drawing only is ilustrative of how can obtaining some ammount of energy. The principle also is used in satellite for solar cells, etc., regarding the publication. Only I share it.

Regards

Esteban

Hi Esteban,

Here is the translation:
The phrase "energy crisis" is becoming increasingly common in our daily conversations. It is very difficult to determine if this phrase is a true crisis or a matter of a popular psychosis. In this climate where energy seems to be topic of everyone's conversation, it is not rare that someone has the idea to utilize a common energy source (static electricity), based on the experiments of Benjamin Franklin. The basic circuit is shown in the figure below. The neon light voltage limiting resistors R1/R2 provide approximately 1.000V to the light. These resistors are connected as voltage dividers which obtain 15Vacross them. This 15 volts is rectified and stabilized by D1, R3, and D2. The battery (10 Nicads in series) is charged via D3. Take note that some components can suffer instabilities. This circuit was originally designed for solar cells in special applications (radio links in the Himilayas, satellite, etc). However, you can use the circuit as a battery charger under one condition: For safety reasons, the captive antenna should be mounted indoors.

What they are saying is this circuit was intended as a method to collect power at remote stations where there is no power. In this application, there is no problem of anyone getting hurt because nobody is there. But it can be used for a home battery charger under one condition: Use it indoors to be safe.

In my opinion, this is a good example of free energy. It's application would be well suited to remote places where you wanted to charge a battery and had no power source.

Some more notes about free static electricity:
The amount of power in the atmosphere can be calculated by looking at measurements made by scientists. We know from these measurements the following data:

1. The average voltage gradient measured at the near surface of the earth is 100v / meter. This amount can become up to 300 v / meter, or as low as 50V / meter, depending on several conditions like time of day, weather, and location on the earth, etc.

2. The average current leaking from the surface of the earth is 2000 amps. This 2000 amps is settling on the surface of the earth, which measures 510,066,000 sq km. This means that for each sq meter of earth surface, there is an average of 3.9 microamps leaking into the atmosphere.

3. Because at the lower levels, the atmosphere is air, it is also a very good insulator, which is the reason why there is only a slow leakage of current from the upper ionosphere.

4. The idea of stringing a wire up into the sky to collect the free power from this voltage gradient will not work efficiently without some more engineering. Erecting a wire in the air in a vertical direction will cause the voltage gradient in the air to deform. This happens because the wire will form a short circuit that connects the ground to the voltage in the air where you are trying to collect a charge. The result is you have moved the ground voltage to a location above where you are trying to collect a charge from. So as the current begins to flow into the top of the charge-collecting antenna, it will quickly pass down the conductor, and the upper voltage will drop to the ground voltage. Then the current will slow down to a trickle, much less than the amount that would freely leak through the atmosphere without the vertical antenna (grounding rod) in place. This will also cause the voltage gradient to become very reduced in the location of the charge-collecting antenna.

Bottom line... the current that you can collect from this antenna is not the same as what would calculate from the undisturbed gradient of 100V/m, and 3.9 microamps in a 1 meter square of surface. But you still collect something, even if less than what is available in an undisturbed gradient. This whole process of disturbing the voltage gradient is what makes the antenna less dangerous than would be expected from a 100v/meter gradient. But beware... there is still a danger if a thunderstorm is brewing... you have built a lightning rod that can easily kill whoever is tinkering with the bottom of the antenna!

Moral of the story:
Keep your antenna indoors like the article says.

Good work, Esteban!

Best wishes,
J_P

has this topic been properly debunkered?

[Max]

Originally Posted by J_Player

Hi Esteban,

Here is the translation:
The phrase "energy crisis" is becoming increasingly common in our daily conversations. It is very difficult to determine if this phrase is a true crisis or a matter of a popular psychosis. In this climate where energy seems to be topic of everyone's conversation, it is not rare that someone has the idea to utilize a common energy source (static electricity), based on the experiments of Benjamin Franklin. The basic circuit is shown in the figure below. The neon light voltage limiting resistors R1/R2 provide approximately 1.000V to the light. These resistors are connected as voltage dividers which obtain 15Vacross them. This 15 volts is rectified and stabilized by D1, R3, and D2. The battery (10 Nicads in series) is charged via D3. Take note that some components can suffer instabilities. This circuit was originally designed for solar cells in special applications (radio links in the Himilayas, satellite, etc). However, you can use the circuit as a battery charger under one condition: For safety reasons, the captive antenna should be mounted indoors.

What they are saying is this circuit was intended as a method to collect power at remote stations where there is no power. In this application, there is no problem of anyone getting hurt because nobody is there. But it can be used for a home battery charger under one condition: Use it indoors to be safe.

In my opinion, this is a good example of free energy. It's application would be well suited to remote places where you wanted to charge a battery and had no power source.

Some more notes about free static electricity:
The amount of power in the atmosphere can be calculated by looking at measurements made by scientists. We know from these measurements the following data:

1. The average voltage gradient measured at the near surface of the earth is 100v / meter. This amount can become up to 300 v / meter, or as low as 50V / meter, depending on several conditions like time of day, weather, and location on the earth, etc.

2. The average current leaking from the surface of the earth is 2000 amps. This 2000 amps is settling on the surface of the earth, which measures 510,066,000 sq km. This means that for each sq meter of earth surface, there is an average of 3.9 microamps leaking into the atmosphere.

3. Because at the lower levels, the atmosphere is air, it is also a very good insulator, which is the reason why there is only a slow leakage of current from the upper ionosphere.

4. The idea of stringing a wire up into the sky to collect the free power from this voltage gradient will not work efficiently without some more engineering. Erecting a wire in the air in a vertical direction will cause the voltage gradient in the air to deform. This happens because the wire will form a short circuit that connects the ground to the voltage in the air where you are trying to collect a charge. The result is you have moved the ground voltage to a location above where you are trying to collect a charge from. So as the current begins to flow into the top of the charge-collecting antenna, it will quickly pass down the conductor, and the upper voltage will drop to the ground voltage. Then the current will slow down to a trickle, much less than the amount that would freely leak through the atmosphere without the vertical antenna (grounding rod) in place. This will also cause the voltage gradient to become very reduced in the location of the charge-collecting antenna.

Bottom line... the current that you can collect from this antenna is not the same as what would calculate from the undisturbed gradient of 100V/m, and 3.9 microamps in a 1 meter square of surface. But you still collect something, even if less than what is available in an undisturbed gradient. This whole process of disturbing the voltage gradient is what makes the antenna less dangerous than would be expected from a 100v/meter gradient. But beware... there is still a danger if a thunderstorm is brewing... you have built a lightning rod that can easily kill whoever is tinkering with the bottom of the antenna!

Moral of the story:
Keep your antenna indoors like the article says.

Good work, Esteban!

Best wishes,
J_P

has this topic been properly debunkered?

Hi,
something is wrong at calculations I think...

if we assume surface of the Earth as 510,066,000 square kms and we know :
1 square km = 1,000meters x 1,000meters = 1,000,000 square meters

we have Earth surface as 510,066,000,000,000 square meters...

Now... assuming your data is correct at current from surface of 2,000Amperes we get really simply the average current from each square meter as:

2,000/510,066,000,000,000 = 3.921 * E-12 or about 4pA/sq meter

But then... your antenna rod will not be sure 1 square meter effective surface ( I think they meant a simple whip antenna.... like for radio receivers)... so you'll probably collect much lower current...

Supposing a uinform field (and it isn't) around antenna and antenna effective area of 1 sq cm we have...

1 sq meter = 100cm x 100cm = 10,000 sq cm

So the expected current for 1 sq cm antenna will be around (really rough calculation) 10,000 times less... or say 3.921 * E-16 Ampere...

We are talking about, then , maybe 392.1 attowatts !!!

With that average current the full recharge of a 2800mah pack will last (not considering losses, self dicharge and chemical recombinations... etc etc etc cause a rechargeable battery don't last a million year usually...)

815,173,972,602 years !

So, that explains, better why it's really a stupid idea...

Kind regards,
Max