RMS wants to get into the battery business

Robert Murray-Smith created his own company, FWG, with 2 partners. He is working on making a better battery. He already has a test format for powering an electric bike. Initial tests are promising. His videos are very open and he gives you recipes and instructions for making your own graphite capacitors and other energy-related items.

Sources
The FWG website.
RMS Youtube channel.
Article: http://revolution-green.com/fwg-battery-sale-robert-murray-smith/

How to power things using batteries and alt power, part 2 of 2

Part 2 of 2

Power draw from the battery

If all 4 amps is being used on the Amazon inverter, how many amp hours are actually being drawn from your battery? 4 amps / 0.8 (efficiency rate), or about 5 amps per hour. Worst case scenario for an inverter that provides 4 amps: If your battery holds 20 amp hours, it will last for 20 amp hours / 5 amps per hour, or 4 hours if there is no power being added to the battery. If your battery holds 80 amp hours, it will last for 80 / 5 amps per hour, or 16 hours of continuous use with no power being added to the battery.

Examples of batteries

Below is a variety of batteries. I don't know about their quality, but let's compare the cost per amp hour of capacity. Do not use "cold cranking amps" for capacity, find the amp hours rating.

- Optima Marine battery, $200 for 55 amp hours. Cost per amp hour: $3.64usd
- 12v battery, $100 for 35 amp hours: $2.86usd

How to power things using batteries and alt power, part 1 of 2

I've been looking into using solar power and batteries to power things. My first kit is used to charge a battery using a small panel, about 12" x 8", and the battery powers an LED light. The battery box also has a 5vdc USB port for charging USB things. Or simply for powering a USB device like a USB fan.

Terms

Here are some terms to get you started.

• Amps: how much current a device draws, per hour. A 1 amp device uses 1 amp per hour. 
• Amp hours: the capacity of a battery. A 2 amp hour (Ah) battery provides 2 amps for 1 hour, or 1 amp for 2 hours, or 0.5 amps for 4 hours.
• Volts: volts is another measurement of a battery. Devices have a minimum voltage they need to run. A radio powered by 2 AA batteries needs about 3.0 volts to run (2 * 1.5 for each AA). An LED can work on a range of voltages. If the ideal voltage for maximum brightness of an LED is 3.3vdc, then as the battery is used up, the voltage drops, and the LED gets dimmer. The LED might go out at about 2.9vdc.
• Watts: A general unit of measure which is volts * amps used. A 12vdc device that uses 0.5 amps per hour uses 12 * 0.5, or 6 watts per hour. Electricity in the US is charged by 1000 watts per hour, or 1 kw per hour.

My next step was looking into using a solar and battery system to power my flat screen TV.

Alternative power usually uses an energy producing device to charge up a battery. If you use solar power (photovoltaics) you are using a solar panel to charge up a battery, and the battery stores energy for later use. You won't need lights during the daytime when the sun is out, so the battery provides power for nighttime use.

In the case of wind power or hydro power, in both cases they turn a generator to produce power, which then charges a battery for energy storage.

But how do you size the system to meet your needs? A battery provides DC power but your TV needs AC power. So you will need an inverter to change from DC to AC power. Buying an inverter based on watts it supports is not helpful. You need to look at relevant energy units, volts and amps. While watts = volts * amps, watts is just a very general way of looking at things. The inverter must provide both the volts and amps our TV needs.

My TV is rated at 12vac and 50 watts (labeled "50w" on the back of the TV). This does not tell us the amps that it draws/uses so we must calculate that. 50/120vac = 0.417 amps, or 417 milliamps (called "mA" with a big A). Amps is how much power it uses per hour. "Amp hours" is for battery capacity, and is how many hours a battery will provide 1 amp. A 1 amp hour (Ah) battery provides 1 amp for 1 hour before the voltage gets too low to be useful.

Solid electrolytes can lead the way to safer batteries!

Researchers at a Japanese institute (KEK, no that's not a Reddit joke, that's the letters of the institute) have come up with a substance to act as a solid electrolyte in lithium batteries. But researchers at Tufts University are doing something similar. A solid electrolyte greatly reduces the chance of a "runaway reaction", or spontaneously exploding batteries like Samsung had. But many problems have to be overcome with a battery technology:

1. Self-discharge is bad. It should be low or zero.
2. Should not explode.
3. Should work from -30C to 100C. 
4. If they are rechargeable they should have fairly good recharge time, and the power they can save should not degrade as fast as current technology.
5. They should be cheap enough for consumers. 
6. Ability to scale up production for consumer use.

Source
Phys.org. 2016-03.

Holey graphene might make better batteries

At Northwestern University, engineers have made a new type of graphene* electrode: one punched with many microscopic holes. It could store 10x as much power (30,000mah instead of 3000) and charge 10x faster. As with any new technology, a big problem is to make it cheap enough for consumers to buy.

* Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms, usually on a substrate. "Graphite" is actually many layers of graphene.

Source
Stanford Extreme Tech. 2011.

DIY batteries and choosing an electrolyte

When making DIY batteries, which electrolyte should we use? It should be easily found in stores, inexpensive, and fairly safe. But which liquid electrolyte works best? 

The best electrolyte we found was hydrogen peroxide + table salt. Hydrogen peroxide is available at drug stores and safe to use, but we suspect the solution has to be made up fresh -- it won't keep.

Another battery they talk about uses 2 different electrolytes, one electrolyte for each metal:
copper metal | copper sulfate solution | salt solution | zinc metal

This uses 2 different paper layers soaked in each electrolyte: copper sulfate and a salt solution. The problems with this is the paper would eventually dry out unless it is in a sealed container. Putting shrink tubing around a penny and zinc battery might help.

But ethanol, ammonia, vinegar, sulfuric acide, and muriatic acid can also be used. But saltwater can be very harsh on certain metals like magnesium.

By looking for a "galvanic potential" chart we can see that aluminum and graphite in a solution of hydrogen peroxide and salt can work well, but the hydrogen peroxide will not last long, especially if exposed to light.

Source
http://www.pa.uky.edu/~sciworks/em/preview/voltz.htm
More examples of electrolytes, including bases.

Research continues on non-exploding lithium batteries

Researchers at Tufts University continue to develop their lithium battery that does not explode or catch fire or even heat up when punctured or cut. Prof. Zimmerman does not use an electrolyte and instead uses a plastic barrier between the anode and cathode. This could be a great leap in safety, and storage capacity, for lithium batteries. But can they scale up production?

There was even a Nova show (Search for the Super Battery) with Prof. Zimmerman.

Source
Slashdot.
Prof Mike Zimmerman's page at Tufts. Zimmerman founded a company Ionic Materials to develop the battery.

DIY Magnesium, graphite, and salt water battery

Here's a Youtube video about making a DIY battery from magnesium, graphite, and salt water as the electrolyte.

1. I got magnesium ribbon from Ebay. 
2. Graphite is what's in most US pencils these days, it's not actually lead, the metal. So carefully cut away the wood from a pencil, and you are left with a graphite core. 
3. Any saltwater solution can be made. You can start with a weak one: 100ml water, 1tsp salt. Take a voltage reading with a multimeter. 
4. Add another 1tsp of salt and stir well. Take another voltage reading. 

• How good is this battery compared to other DIY batteries in this series? 
• What if you change the electrolyte to vinegar? Lemon juice? Soda? Do the volts go up or down?

DIY penny and nickel battery

This battery is made from some US pennies, and nickels. It also uses a saltwater electrolyte.

Source
Instructables.

More DIY battery links

Looking for more fun to make your own batteries at home? Here are some more links.

DIY battery from Scitoys.com. Uses copper and zinc in an acid electrolyte.

DIY aluminum air battery

This aluminum air battery is made from aluminum foil, and activated charcoal, with a paper towel between them soaked in an electrolyte.

Terms:

• Cathode: the negative terminal
• Anode: the positive terminal

To test the battery, follow the directions from the site. Then take a multimeter and put the negative (-, black) probe on the charcoal, and the positive end (+, red) on the aluminum foil.

1. How many volts does it produce? 
2. How many amps? 
3. What happens if you crush the charcoal into a powder? Do volts or amps increase? 

Source
Exploratorium.

DIY penny battery

This DIY penny battery needs some US pennies with a zinc core (after 1982) and some cardboard soaked in an electrolyte.

When making the cardboard pieces, make sure they do not touch any other cardboard pieces. This will cause a short and the battery will not work.

From Exploratorium.edu.

DIY AA battery delivers 1.6vdc!

Yes I'm Jonesing for DIY batteries! There will be several articles on different types of DIY batteries.

This is a neat DIY project even kids can do. The voltage is so low it will hurt no one.

This delivers 1.6vdc. It probably costs more than batteries at the Dollar Tree, but it will work in a pinch. All you need is galvanized washers (which provides the zinc layer) and copper washes (for the copper layer), and cardboard soaked in vinegar or another acidic solution, or salt water.

An AA battery has a diameter of .53" (14mm) and a length of 1.95" (49.7mm) including the top button. If fitting this into a device is important, try to get 13mm washers (outside diameter) so you will room for the shrink wrap. A US penny can be used but it's too wide at 18.9mm.

Modern US pennies since about 1984 have a zinc inside, and thin copper layer outside. So you can sand off one side of the penny to expose the zinc, and the other side will be copper.


Some questions to ask when making this:

1. Does the voltage or amps produced depend on the surface area of the washers? 
2. What happens to the volts or amps if you change the electrolytes? 

Copper washers.

1. Copper washers, 10x, from Hong Kong.
2. Assorted copper washers various sizes, 200 pcs. 
3. Copper washers, 6mm inside diam, 10mm outside diam, 1mm thick. 10 pcs.
4. Copper washers, 14mm outside diam, 10pcs.  
5. Copper washers, 13mm outside diam, 10pcs.

Zinc washers. (Galvanized washers means they are coated with zinc to resist rust.)
In various metric sizes.

Misc

1. Washer dimensions.
2. More metric washer dimensions (PDF).
3. M6 washers have an OUTSIDE diameter of 11.5-16mm.
4. M7 washers have outside diameter of 13.5mm.

Batteroo post updated

The Batteroo post has been updated as people test the device. Read up here.

Basically I thought it was possible to miniaturize a Joule Thief but this device doesn't even do that. It's a total scam.

Testing different electrolytes at home for DIY batteries.

For each DIY battery you make, you have dissimilar metals, like copper and zinc. But sometimes they are not always metal, like the aluminum foil and activated charcoal battery. In order to test the power output of different electrolytes we must make all other variables the same. Here's what you will need:

1. Penny
2. Nickel, post-1964 (1964 was a transition year so some nickels contain silver, get a nickel post-1964 to make sure it has no silver)
3. 2 wires each with an alligator clip.
4. Multimeter. If you want to use a USB meter instead you will need to buy this USB to test hook adapter.
5. 3 beakers or glasses. Plastic cups can work also. 
6. Salt
7. Vinegar
8. Lemon juice
9. Measuring spoon of 1 teaspoon
10. Measuring beaker of 100ml. If you don't have a beaker use a measuring cup for liquid measurements, not dry measurements.

Above: I use different containers, and I found a 60ml measuring cup!

Above: Find some wires with alligator clips on both ends. Hook the red wire to the nickel (+, red) and the black wire to the penny (-, black).

Now put 100ml in a glass, put both the penny and nickel in the water, and turn the multimeter to measure DC voltage. We get about 147millivolts with plain water, that's not enough to even light an LED.

Remove the penny and nickel. Now take the 100ml of water and add one level teaspoon of salt to it. Stir it well. Now put the penny and nickel back into the water. What voltage does the voltmeter read now?

If your multimeter reads a negative voltage it just means you have to switch the probes around. A negative voltage won't harm your multimeter. 

Remove the nickel and penny and add a second teaspoon of salt, stir it well. Put the nickel and penny back into the saltwater. How much voltage is being generated? How many amps?

Discard the salt water and rinse the glass well. Now make these solutions and test the voltage and amps they output. Write each result down.

1. 50ml water, 50ml vinegar. 
2. 50ml water, 100ml vinegar. 
3. Discard vinegar water and rinse glass well. 
4. 50ml water, 50ml lemon juice. 
5. Discard lemon water and rinse glass well. 
6. Add 100ml of soda. Take a voltage reading. Write it down.

What happens to the voltage and amps in each case? By adding more vinegar or lemon juice (both acids), does the voltage go up or down? What kind of voltage does soda give? Sodas are very acidic so they should work very well.

Summary
You can search the internet for different kinds of metals. Certain combinations of metals give higher voltages, and some give more amps, and some give a longer run time. Likewise, the stronger acids can also have an effect on voltage.

Batteroo: voltage booster for AA and AA cells

The Battero is a voltage booster that is a sleeve that goes round your AA or AAA battery cells, very common cells used in the US market. That means it can boost the voltage to your items get more use out of the battery. Normally, a 1.5vdc AA battery is considered dead when it reaches 1.2v. The Batteroo boosts the voltage higher so the device thinks the battery has more juice than it does.

The Batteroo got a lot of criticism because it make outrageous claims like extending battery life 800%. That is not true, but it does extend battery life. The concept of a voltage booster is also called  Joule Thief. The concept is simple, but the key for the Batteroo was miniturizing the components to fit as a sleeve around the AA battery.

More Batteroos scheduled to be sold in Jan 2017. Stay tuned. I'll be testing one of these.

I haven't seen any Joule Thief flashlights out there. Most flashlights concentrate on guzzling power to get a high brightness to blind a UFO. But if you want a power-sipping LED light that works on dead batteries, go here to Etsy.

EDIT: Further Batteroo testing by several people revealed the Batteroo does nothing to improve battery life. So it appears it's not even a tiny Joule Thief.

1. EEVBlog video here, with toy train test.  
2. EEVBlog post about the Batteroo testing. You will need a free account to comment.
3. Wikipedia entry on Batteroo.

I assumed there was some potential here if they really miniaturized a Joule Thief, and improved battery life about 20-40%, but test results indicate that it's a total scam.

San Jose State University's Kiumars Parvin claimed, "We tested the Batteriser sleeve in our lab and we confirmed that the Batteriser taps into 80 percent of energy that is usually thrown away."

Now if you don't know how marketers talk, you will totally misunderstand the above statement. The statement does not say "it uses up all of the other 80% of the battery power". It says "it taps into (uses some of) the wasted 80% of battery power."

In the test by UL (safety organization), a Garmin Golf GPS using Batteriser was shown to have a lifespan of 10 hours and 12 minutes, in contrast to the 1 hour and 43 minutes of operating time without a Batteriser.^[8] However, later the test was independently duplicated by TechnologyCatalyst to demonstrate that Garmin runs OK for over 17 hours on ordinary AA batteries, and the report by UL was based on the sloppy test design.

 Test design matters, quite a bit, apparently. A better test might be how many milliamps the device uses with and without the Batteroo. Power meters on different devices are designed differently and can be misleading.

Tiny batteries with nanopores charge in 12 minutes

A new battery type, made with nanopores, could store more energy in a smaller space and improve battery technology.

Highlights:

1. They are 80,000 times thinner than a human hair. I wonder if they could be made flexible.
2. One billion nanoholes could fit on a postage stamp. 
3. Recharges thousands of times. (Not likely, current batteries don't even do that.)
4. It could take 3-5 years to commercialize this product. 
5. These batteries have the potential to triple a cell phone's battery life and give electric vehicles a 300-mile driving range. 
6. It took two decades to bring the initial lithium-ion battery to the market.

Source
National Geographic, 2014.
Follow NatGeoGreen on Twitter.

Edison's nickle-iron cell making a comeback.

The alkaline nickle-iron battery is making a comeback. It is reusable, non-polluting, and can be slowly charged over 40 years. It is very tolerant of over- and under-charging and short circuits.

1. Self-discharge rate: 10-15% per month, so it needs trickle charging.
2. Stored energy: 30-50kw/kg (2.2 lbs).
3. Normal cell voltage: 1.2vdc
4. Energy per USD: 1.5-6.6vdc

Source
Off Grid Quest.

Charge your phone with a banana

Yes, this should work, given that you use 2 different types of metals, one for the positive lead one for the negative lead. Any acidic solution will work, whether it's from an orange, lemon, apple, or, I guess, even a banana.

Source
Device Byte.

Solar in rental units

"85% savings with energy storage" said the headline.

Another quote:

“The addition of storage technologies has the potential to nearly double stand-alone solar electricity bill savings at about a third of the cost of solar. For example, the addition of a $112,100 battery storage system to a $385,000 solar installation increased savings from $15,000 per year to $27,900, an 85 percent increase in savings for only a 29 percent increase in cost.”

So, to pay for the $385k solar installation, with a savings of $27,900 per year, means it would take 385,000/27900, or 13 years to break even. $385k is capital that most mom and pop, and even many corporate rental companies do not have. We really need more cost-effective ways for the little individual family to go with solar or storage technologies, and even that won't benefit some people. Only in some areas is the cost of energy going up much too fast.

Using insulating technologies to save energy could help. Living underground  is one idea but you just can't push dirt against a building and make it work. First the building has to be engineered enough to withstand the pressure of the dirt from all the sides. Second, even if it's legal according to zoning laws (which prevent many many people from using wind power), most people do not have the cash to do such a thing. An underground house, in most cases, must be built from scratch.

The other issue working against people installing alternative energy solutions is spelled out here:

“Median rents in California increased by over 20 percent from 2000 to 2012, while the median income dropped by 8 percent, significantly driving up the percentage of income that California households must spend on rent.”

Incomes keep going up, or stay the same and lost to increases costs. The inflation rate only tracks the AVERAGE cost of goods in the US or at the state level. It has nothing to do with people not getting a raise in 10 years, increase out-of-pocket medical expenses, higher taxes from Obamacare and other sources, and other factors.

Source
Clean Technica.