Getting electricity from pocket change

by david 11. October 2011 23:40

When I was on holiday recently I read the book "Electrified Sheep" which amused me. But it mentioned the voltaic pile - an early kind of battery. So I decided that I should build one :-) I used some US coinage that was sitting in a drawer. I cleaned the coins by soaking them in coca-cola. Then dissolved some dishwasher salt in warm water to act as the electrolyte. I soaked small bits of kitchen towel in that solution and put them between the coins, like this:

voltaic pile 1

To my amusement, this was enough to light a suitable LED. This is what I got on the voltmeter:

voltage

...somewhere around 2 volts. I'm wondering what I could run off it, umm ... interesting.

About the author

David

I'm a C# developer having worked with .Net since it was in beta.  Before that I mainly worked in C and C++.  I have been developing commercial software for more than 20 years.  I also mess around with microprocesors, but that's just for fun.  I live near Cambridge, England and at the moment I'm contracted to one of the departments at Cambridge University.

Tag cloud