DIY Batteries

[TwinkleTits]

I don't know too much about batteries so correct me if I'm talking any bullshit at any point.

I was wondering how viable building your own electrochemical voltage generating/storage device would be. I know you can just buy them but thats not the point the point of this thread is gaining the knowledge and skill to build your own one. You might be off camping one day and can't afford to buy a car battery and decide to build your own battery.

First off I'd say the bigger the cell the more charge you can produce so I'd say two big metal or plastic (depending on the electrolyte) would be the ideal containers for the electrolyte.

I better read up on electrochemical cells again cuz I can't remember all the details of how they work but I think I have the general idea. So for this kinda project you wanna use the cheapest and easiest to find substance for your electrolyte. Some drain cleaners are 95% sulfuric acid and they sell it for about $25 a liter so that seems like a decent electrolyte to go for.

[Mantikore]

i remember the chemical engineers had a competition of who could build the fastest toy racecar with a home made battery.

you could just use a galvanic cell with two different metals, then you can use a cheaper electrolyte

[Virus]

I don't know too much about batteries so correct me if I'm talking any bullshit at any point.

I was wondering how viable building your own electrochemical voltage generating/storage device would be. I know you can just buy them but thats not the point the point of this thread is gaining the knowledge and skill to build your own one. You might be off camping one day and can't afford to buy a car battery and decide to build your own battery.

First off I'd say the bigger the cell the more charge you can produce so I'd say two big metal or plastic (depending on the electrolyte) would be the ideal containers for the electrolyte.

I better read up on electrochemical cells again cuz I can't remember all the details of how they work but I think I have the general idea. So for this kinda project you wanna use the cheapest and easiest to find substance for your electrolyte. Some drain cleaners are 95% sulfuric acid and they sell it for about $25 a liter so that seems like a decent electrolyte to go for.

You have the right idea, keep in mind lead is what is used in car batteries.

[Struwwelpeter]

It's easy, just use lemons. I power my dildo with them.

[reggie_love]

http://www.libertylib.com/improvised-munitions-handbook/improvised-battery-2-hour.shtml

Maybe that'll give you some ideas.

[Xenon]

Some people might not have access to all those chemicals:

Ammonium chloride
or
Potassium Permangate
or
Manganese Dioxide.

[Cir]

You could make a voltaic pile out of nickels and pennies and salty wet paper. The size is only limited to how many coins you have. You could use PVC pipe segments as battery casings.

[blue_monday]

God damn, i wish i could remember all of it from gen chem, but we learned about this. Basically IIRC, you can make a battery out of almost any 2 ionic bonded compounds, its jsut the difference in some factor that determines how good of charge you can get. look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_cell. IIRC this is why the lemon/zinc/copper battery works.

If you really want to get the juice pumping though, you're going to build a nuclear reactor.

[eesakiwi]

If you are thinking of making a battery with as much power as a car battery, its gonna have to be a LOT bigger than a car battery.

They use lead sulphates & other lead shit to up the effiency of the plates.
It has the effect of creating a larger surface area which is the 'be all & end all' of batterys.

I saved up some scrap lead & then melted it & poured it unto the ceramic part of a home gas heater (after I took the whole thing apart & made a frame around it.)
The idea was that the lead would sink into the holes in the ceramic plate & make a whole lot of 'lead fingers' about 10mm long on one side of the lead plate.
That was to make a higher surface area on the plate.

Unfortually the lead plate wouldn't seperate from the ceramic mold leaving the fingers intact.
I figure I'd have to dissolve the ceramic mold with some chemical & thats as far as I got...