What about those battery's we made in high school chemistry lab, with a sacrifical anode and an electrolyte solution ? Could you hook 4 of them together and get a 6 volt battery ? Rickster

-- Henry Edward Nietopski (rickster@n-jcenter.com), May 27, 1999

Answers

Henry,

For a frame of reference, years ago my eight year old son made a battery from two lemons using a 3/8 inch piece of galvanized sheet metal and a 3/8 inch copper tube for electrodes.

The two lemon cells in series powered a flashlight bulb status light in parallel with a hand wound electro-magnet through a small knife switch.

My recollection is the two lemons would last about four or five days of intermittent use, but this was in the early 'eighties and we didn't own a meter sensitive / accurate enough to measure the volts or load.

Seems to me you could make the one you described and make it work, if you had to.

My advice, trial and error on paper (design) is more expedient than trial and error in the workshop. He had a good reference book to go by, from Radio Shack I believe.

-- Tom Beckner (tbeckner@erols.com), May 27, 1999.

What about using 55 gal. plastic drums and copper water pipe and zinc rods connected in series to get 12 volts and ??? amps? Rickster

-- Henry Edward Nietopski (rickster@n-jcenter.com), May 27, 1999.