Is it possible to use earth or soil energy to power small homemade appliances? This research project gives an answer, although the battery endurance test is still in progress.
A soilurinebattery will not solve the world energy problems. But research into ‘Soil Power’ applications are very interesting because of the simple design and the easy to get, cheap components. I made two ultra-low power test devices as load . The basic battery consists of 4 soilurine cells. Enough to power kinetic devices for hopefully a long and moving life.
Video
The video shows how this soilurine battery is made and used.
Circuit diagram
The simplest drive of a pulse motor on soil cell power.
With all the fossil energy hunger in 2022, In this project I want to use only the energy what earth and soil us freely gives. It may be negligible but you can easily harvest and use it.
Can I use an earth battery to power low-power devices? Yes, I did it. I made a simple battery with soil, coppertube and a zincplate. The cell voltage is 0.9V and a short circuit makes 200 microAmp. The pendulum consumes about 40 microAmp. A supercap of 10F is the buffering battery. Duration tests have still to be done. Also soilcell improvement is part of the project. I love low-tech minimalism. My Non-Stop Solar Devices are running for month’s and some for years. More at YouTube.
A simple way to harvest microAmps from the soilSchema of the earth battery
De mens is een lichaam (zoals ook een plant dat is), hij is in het lichaam (als innerlijk beleven, zoals ook een dier dat kent) en hij is tegelijkertijd ook altijd buiten zijn lichaam, als het gezichtspunt van waaruit hij beide is. Vanwege deze drievoudige gebrokenheid leeft de mens in drie werelden: een buitenwereld, een binnenwereld en een gedeelde wereld van geest of cultuur.
Zo is ons lichaam (als deel van de buitenwereld) niet alleen een fysiek lichaam, dat wil zeggen een ding onder dingen dat een specifieke plaats inneemt in een objectief ruimte- tijdcontinuüm, maar ook een doorleefd lichaam dat als centrum van ons waarnemen en handelen functioneert. De binnenwereld op haar beurt is niet alleen ziel, de bron van onze psychische ervaringen, maar ook beleving, speelbal van psychische processen. En voor de wereld van de cultuur geldt dat we niet alleen een ik vormen – dat een bijdrage levert aan de schepping van deze wereld – maar ook een wij in zoverre we door die wereld worden gedragen en gevormd.
De mens is door zijn constitutieve thuisloosheid nooit af, maar moet zich altijd nog verwerkelijken en daartoe is hij aangewezen op techniek en cultuur. Deze kunstmatige middelen zijn niet alleen – en niet in de eerste plaats – instrumenten om te overleven, maar een zijns noodzakelijkheid.
De mens kan zich niet werkelijk bloot geven aan zijn medemensen en zichzelf, omdat achter zijn maskers de radicale bodemloosheid van zijn bestaan schuilgaat.
Duitse bioloog, filosoof en socioloog Helmuth Plessner (1892–1985)
My research into what a future Gardener Gathering might look like led to the following suggestions. It is important to open and close a GG in a proper way. The opening ceremony makes clear why we come together and the closing summarizes the achievements of our togetherness. Gardener gatherings have a clear and formal structure. The dialog form is partly taken over from the Freemasonry. Unlike their building symbolism Gardener rituals and symbols represent the work and tools in relation with nature. Ecological awareness cultivates the garden inside and outside ourselves.
My intention is not to breathe new life into Freemasonry, but to create an ecology minded movement. In this time of unrest from life-threatening conditions of virus infection, wars and climate, the advent of binding ceremonial gatherings, in and with nature, is of great importance. But how do you express that? The means for this are described in two publications that can be downloaded below. The first paper shows the structure of a Gardener-gathering. The second paper presents the opening and closing ritual. Every group decides what substance it will give between the opening and closing. We are nature, need nature and worship nature in a contemporary 21e century manner. Be part of a New Era.
The link below contains an example of a Gardener ceremony in Dutch. An English version is in the making.
This is a known way to harvest 24/7/365 energy from an antenna or in my case from the steelbase of a table. I wanted to check the amount of energy I can possible harvest between the table at the first floor and the ground pin outside. With 4 parts I made an circuit that charges in a day and a half a 10.000 microfarad electrolytic condensor to 7 Volt. Strange enough I could not measure any charge current with my multimeter, not one microAmp. Maybe I tap, beside electromagnetic energy, also ZPE, radiant and atmospheric energy; who knows? The speed of charging surprises me. See image below:
Test set-up to check the charging of the capacitor.
The energy harvest circuit has now a 3 farad capacitor. It charges slow but constant. The TPL5111 module uses ultra low current about 600nA. The voltage range is from 1.8V to 5Volt It has a potmeter for a timer setting till 2 hours. This circuit runs at 2.5V and has a 100 milisecond LED blink every minute. The circuit uses the same amount of energy than it can harvest. With this ultra low power device you can use E-smog at a very small scale. See image below
This is the energy harvester with the TLP5111 pulse-generator blinking every minute.
It’s not difficult to make an ‘artistic’ christmas surprise for your wife and friend. Buy a Quarz clock device with hands. Get some balsawood plate 3mm thick. Make the hands at size. Make the desired shapes and glue them to the clock hands. When all is in place you can paint this kinetic sculpture. Clocktime is there but the shapes are also sails on the flowing river of Kairos time.
A simple 4 NAND gate control circuit for the cheap, low power 5 digit tally counter.
Intro
Why a cheap digital tally counter not using for other purposes? i needed a day counter for another project i was working on. So I bought a tally counter and first measured the energy consumption. That was so low that I could feed the circuit with a supercap. A small solar panel could provide sufficient energy for a very long time. The only problem was the control. How do I convert the day / night voltage of the solar panel into a signal that increase the tally counter by one number? It was a long process that resulted in this simple circuit.
The Circuit
We follow the circuit from left to right. The 5V-60mA solarpanel delivers over the LDO LP2950 3V max. The voltage lost over the shottky diode BAT85 is 300mV. This charges the 10F super capacitor with 2.7V. max. The LDO MPC1703 has 1.5V out to power the Tally Counter.
The CD4093 is an ultra low power quad gate schmitt triggered NAND IC. Gate A is a comperator that makes a nice level edge with RV. Gate B makes an edge triggered pulse of 1 second. Gate C makes a 100 ms pulse at the beginning of the B pulse and Gate D at the end of the B pulse. Both, B and C pulse are connected with a 470nF capacitor to the count input of the tally.
The Tally Counter board has a minimalistic setup. The 14 pin display connector controls a 5 digit display.
Magic Mouse3 is a non-existing mouse from Apple. When existing, it has certainly a wireless charger on board. When Apple doesn’t make one, we makers do. In reversible steps I went from Magic Mouse 2011 to version 2020. In this part 2 we see a way to modify the Magic Mouse to charge wireless a battery. Two parts are important; the Li-ion battery and the charge modules with the coils. Except the receiver coil all parts fit within the battery compartment of the mouse.
This video shows how the modification is done.
The connection pin from version 2 has to be
replaced by an aluminium strip. Now there is enough place for the charge
receiver module in the battery compartment. This module has a regulated
voltage output of 5V.
The single cell Li-ion battery has a
charge controller with protection circuit build-in at an extreem small
surface. Only two holes have to be drilled in the battery compartment
lid, one aluminium connection strip installed and a micro-usb connector
has been made smaller. Also a plastic slide sheet has to be cut to
protect the coil at the bottom. On the transmitter side only a usb2 plug
is soldered at the 5V input pins.
Nearly all parts in the battery compartment.Transmitter- and receiver coil transporting energy.
We start with desoldering the receiver coil from the module and stick the two ends of the coil through two holes in the battery lid. Then we solder the coil ends on to the board. With 2 sided tape the coil is connected to the lid and the receiver board to the strip. Now the micro usb plug has to be stripped, cut as small as possible, to fit within the battery compartment. The plus and the minus of the plug are connected to the board pins. After the micro-usb is put in the battery opening we are ready to test the charging procedure.
Before starting the load progress test all the parts have to fit nicely within the battery compartment. The wires have to come in place. When the lid is closed only the coil is sticking out. Now we connect the charge transmitter to a 230V netadapter with 5V-1A usb out. When both coils are put beside each other the red charging led of the battery lights up. When the battery is fully charged a green led light’s up. All the charging is done completely automatic. The rest current of the transmitter is about 50mA. Charging can start with 700mA, that goes quickly down to 200mA.
The charge slot and charger in at amazing small surface.
A downside is that the coil lifts the mouse in the back. That is no problem, as long the frontside stays on the same level. Taking away a part of the black sliders underneath the coil lowers the mouse. This modification works fine. The Magic Mouse reacts after this modification as usual. Only the battery level on the computer is always 100 percent. The charge transmitter can be build in a box or in the mouse pad. Make sure that when the mouse touches the charging pad, the transmitter only turns on. that saves energy. The costs of the charging set is less than $10, the same for the battery.
A mouse with 2 disposable AA batteries can be modificated in a rechargeable mouse in a simple way. With the introduction of rechargeable AA batteries we can use the mouse in a more sustainable way.
Information of the sizes of the mod.
With the arrival of a rechargeable Li-ion AA battery I could change the 2 disposable batteries for this rechargeable one in a simple way. Without touching the electronic circuit of the mouse, anybody can do this conversion in a quick and save way. Although the Li-ion battery has a voltage of 3.7V instead of 3V, it has been shown that my mouse can handle that voltage difference very well. What makes this modification easy is the build-in charger, protection circuit and a micro-usb charge port. You can say, this Li-ion AA battery is in fact a compleet power supply system. It is amazing how they get the charger, protection, usb slot in a 5mm thick and 13mm round surface
Video of how it all is done
With the arrival of a rechargeable Li-ion AA battery I could change the 2 disposable batteries for a rechargeable one. Without touching the electronic circuit of the mouse, anybody can do this modification in a quick and save way. Although the Li-ion battery has a voltage of 3.7V instead of 3V, it has been shown that my mouse can handle that voltage difference very well. What makes this modification easy is the build-in charger, protection circuit and a micro-usb charge port. You can say, this Li-ion AA battery is in fact a complete power supply system. It is amazing how the manufacturer makes a charger, protection and usb slot in a 5mm thick and 13mm round cylinder. There are 2 things to make: 1- A 5mm long and 5mm thick pin or tube, to replace one disposable battery. 2- A hole has to be made in the lid of the battery compartment in the place of the micro-usb slot of the Li- Ion battery. The micro-usb plug has to go with ease through the hole in the battery usb slot. A photo is showing the sizes of the hole and tube. The video shows how in my case the Apple magic mouse is converted to a rechargeable one. The downside is that the battery level is incorrectly (always 100%) indicated on the computerscreen. Now you can charge the Li-ion fully automaticaly and save. A red charging LED and a green full LED are also build-in. When charging; switch the mouse power off.
The aim of this project is to cause a continuous swing of 2 pendulums. I discovered a nice interplay between an active and a passive pendulum. It is an interaction of permanent-magnetic and electro-magnetic force fields combined with gravity. The weight of the pendulum is a magnet hanging horizontally from a needle. A sharp steel point makes a very low friction at the magnetic suspension point. To count the runtime days of the pendulum I use a 6 digit lcd counter module. If the pendulum stops the counter resets. This gives me a true record of the ‘swing time’. A solar panel, a voltage regulator and a super capacitor provides energy for the ‘everlasting’ power supply.
Pendulum solar circuit, building plan and day counter
As coil pulse driver I use my simple 2 transistor circuit. Variable
resistor RV is set for a clean pulse. The LED lights up by the back EMF.
NPN transistor 2N3904 is reversed connected; this works fine, try it! I
have extended this circuit with a day counter. I use a low power
Trumeter 7000AS as totaling counter with reset and up/down direction
function. The count input C is connected with the solar panel and is
negative edge triggered. By night the voltage falls below the 0.7
threshold and the counter will add one step. Reset at input R happens
also on the negative edge.
In the active state the pulse circuit
feeds a positive pulse (via C 100nF and the schottky diode) at C 470nF.
Transistor T3 is in conduction and T4 is closed.
When the pendulum stops the basis of T3 becomes low and shall close this. After C 100uF is charged T4 is in conduction and this will reset the counter. The circuit uses as little as 30uA, inclusive day counter. The supercap will charge even in cloudy conditions and indoor light. The 3V regulator is an ultra low power SMD type.
The video shows how it is doneThe active pendulum with solar panel, supercap, coil and daycounter
The duo pendulum project belongs to my
investigation with micro- and nano powered moving devices. Before this I
had to make many prototypes. It is important to make reliable
electrical and mechanical connections. That sounds simple but is not.
Double check is necessary. The active pendulum reacts jerky because of
hidden magnets. There is no restpoint; the pendulum starts instantly.
Watching a pair of pendulums ‘dancing’ is pure fun.
