Imhotep's Lab Interactive FAQ

I lost it. I can't get that 30mA back. It looked hopeful there, but I have not
been able get the amps back up since I rebuilt the cells.
30mA was very doable and could have been useful.

Water evaporates very quickly and you end up losing the gains archived.
This must be fixed to before gains can become consistently obtained.

I'm trying to stay away adding anything into the water.
This does not seem likely to be productive in the short run.

I built a new design which looked good also with 4mA reading on the first
prototype but that too disappeared to 0.3mA after completing the cell
construction.
I have 3 of those cells now which without any charging and just water
product 0.5 v and 0.3 mA each.
Using the only meter I have for amp, analog, drains the amps down
which at this point is the only load test I have at the low level, so that's good.

Hello Vortex,

I have been working on some water battery experiments with my daughter. We are using a cup of plain tap water what a 6" nail and 6" solid core 6AWG wire.

So far each cup will put out around 1 volt and 0.3 ma. We took 4 cups last night and hooked them up in series and powered a 3.2 volt LED, it was however very dim.

We also hooked the cells up in parallel and got 1.5 ma @ 1 volt. Tonight we plan on adding more copper wire and zinc to form bigger plates to test if that will give us any better results.

If I understand your post you said that you get 4ma before you close the cell. All my cells have been open cups of water. Tonight I will try some closed cell test and post my results.

Hi altrez,

That's pretty good voltage, volts happen almost without trying.
In the same way that they just happen, you can see them disappear too, it's strange.
Try 3 nails with a rubber band around them, wrapped in a paper towel.
Then wrap the copper wire around the paper towel.
You should get a bit more amps from that.

It's the amps that are harder to obtain.
That is surface area, distance between metals and solution dependent.
Solution, other than just water, will cause your metals to be used up faster though.

I cut the top off a fresh Aluminum Can, 12 oz., and tested it as is .. ZERO amps.
I burnt off the inside coating, do this outside. I'm sure the fumes are toxic.
It read 0.4+ mA, I'm using a lot of copper wire.
Cut the bottom off the can and down the side making it a sheet.
Cleaned the burnt coating off.
That read 0.35 mA .. loss of surface area due to the bottom of can being missing
hurt the reading. I didn't get a reading before cleaning, only after, whoops.
Wrapped my copper wire in paper towel and the sheet around that.
That read 0.43 mA . The closer the two metals are together more the output.

The issue is evaporation of solution in long term use, in small compact cells. It goes really fast.
Ease of construction is a factor and connection of cells is a problem ..
It would be nice if connectors could be constructed. I've managed to create
negative connectors out of Aluminum Can, the Aluminum is the negative in these
cells. I need to figure out a way to do away with soldering wires to the positive side.

Ok I have made some progress! I can get 5.75 volts and .6 ma with 6 pure water battery's in series! If I add half a cup of bleach it kicks the ma's up over 40! but it drops the volts to 2.75 and I am not sure why that is.

I will keep testing and let everyone know.

My load for testing is a 3.2v - 3.6v LED 20ma

Boost the amps with carbon.!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm getting continuous reading, reading both volts and amps at the same time of 0.2+ volts @ 13+ milliamps.
That's a LOT of amps for a inch square cell.
Submerged in salt water the cell reads 0.3+ volts @ 15+ milliamps.

I have a home made woodgas stove I can create charcoal with.
I would be nice if someone with BBQ charcoal tried this.

Galvanized screws work well also.
I used a inch square galvanized piece of sheet metal.
Wrapped a couple of times with very small gauge wire.
Wrapped that in two pieces of toilet paper folded over 3 times...
The more paper, the longer it will last before needing more solution.
The paper ends up being a bit larger than the inch square sheet metal.
Cut a piece of charcoal in half that was around 1" x 3/4".
Place those halves on each side of the paper/sheet metal
and wrapped the sheet metal/paper/charcoal together with
6 turns of small gauge wire.
Wrapped that in tape. The wire from the sheet metal and wire around everything stick out the opposite ends from each other.

Wet the paper with salt water. Bleach is too harsh, more expensive than salt and should be kept to purify water if needed. My salt water isn't very salty. I can say what the mix is at this time, maybe like a 1/2 teaspoon in 1/2 cup of water.