Thursday, October 28, 2010

This might seem a little suspect

....But it does work.Since winter's coming, solar panels won't work that well. But an Earth battery might. I'd charge the robot pretty slowly as you need to drive a lot of stakes into the ground before you get a useful current, but if you can deal with 12 hour recharging periods, this would do the trick. It also keeps supplying power for several months before the soil is depleted. Good idea? Yes? No?

6 comments:

  1. It sounds like fuckin' witchcraft to me, but if it works, do it.
    Possibly without those weird goggles.

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  2. I thought that lemon/potato batteries (of which I think this is a variant) actually got their power from the chemical change of the zinc. I.e. your electrodes will degrade over time.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon_battery#Energy_source

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  3. Absolutely correct, Tinkergirl. But the lemon/potato battery is limited more by the rapid depletion of it's electrolytic properties than the degradation of the cathode/anode. An earth battery lasts longer because bacterial activity in the soil continually replenishes it's electrolytic compounds. Eventually the cathode and anode do require replacement, but long before that you'll have depleted the patch of soil you're using and need to move onto another.

    Btw, what's the point of doing mad science without weird goggles on? :3

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  4. thanks for that tidbit of information. now i can play xbox anywhere i carry several hundred puds of metal. TO THE HARDWARE STORE!

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  5. Have you heard of this:

    http://drive.outlandersport.com/

    It's kind of similar, but more expensive and they snatch the controls away from you the moment you decide to do anything that could kill someone.

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