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One of our MAKE readers sent in this potato powered battery, the site is down now, but there is a mirror - "I built a potato battery out of 500 pounds of potatoes. It powered a small sound system. I installed the battery and sound system in the back of a U-Haul truck and drove it around town inviting people to enter the truck and take a listen....Each potato generates about 0.5 volts and 0.2 milliamperes. I connected groups of potatoes together in series to increase voltage and then connected these groups together in parallel to increase amperage. The entire 500 lb battery generated around 5 volts and 4 milliamperes. Don't eat potatoes after using them for a battery." [via] - Mirror & Link.
500 lb Potato Battery
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Apr 17, 2006 12:34 AM
Electronics, Made On Earth |
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500 pounds and it can't even drive an LED.
Is anyone else sick of all these galvanic cell postings. We get it, stick electrodes in an electrolyte, you get a battery. Enough already.
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oracle, click the suggest a site link and send in some site and projects you'd like to see on make. we'll post them up! i think out of all the posts on make there are likely less than 0.01% which are galvanic cells?
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what I really want to know is how come you can't eat the taters after?? If I do, what is the chance I will gain incredible superpowers?
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5cameron, the metals form ions which disolve into the electrolyte, and you don't want to east metal ions. Unless you count destroying your own brain as a superpower, there is zero chance ;).
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well... its certainly not an incredible one.
Thanks for the info though!
I found a project that had a car driven by one of these potato batteries. I'm wondering if anyone has any idea how this might work.
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sorry about that, here is the link
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my god...it's like the matrix, only with potatoes.
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whats the web sight with the car driven by potatoes
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