is there free energy hiding in your sparechange? in this video you'll learn how to turn a handful of pennies into batteries thatcan power some of your small electronic devices. for this project, i'll need pennies. my neighbortrevor gave me these and i'll begin sorting them by date. i want pennies newer than 1982because they're nearly 98% zinc. ok i've picked out 10 pennies that i think will work, soi'll use this 100 grit sandpaper and start sanding one side of the penny. actually, thismay be too much work, so i'll try some double sided sticky tape and an orbital sander. thisis working much better to expose the zinc, but the adhesive has melted from the friction,and left these pennies in a sticky mess. no problem, i'll just use some adhesive removerto clean them up, and now they're looking
great! it's time to build a battery. i'llcut some thin cardboard into pieces just bigger than the penny, and throw them in some vinegar.while those are soaking, i'll start my battery cell by placing one of the pennies with thecopper side down on a piece of aluminum foil. as you can see, nothing is happening yet,so i'll blot dry one of my cardboard pieces, and place it on top. this time when i measurethe voltage, i'm excited to see over half a volt from this one cell! i'll add anotherpenny and cardboard, and repeat the process until i've stacked up all my pennies. nowthe cells are connected in series, and the electric potential has jumped to nearly 6volts! wow. this should be more than enough voltage to drive an led, so i'll test it outwith this one. it works perfectly, and i can't
believe how brilliantly this lights up. justfor fun i'm testing the currant draw and it's pulling about 170 microamps. i can even lightup two at once. ok, so it works, and it's actually really impressive that i'm gettingelectricity from pennies, but now i'm curious to know how long this can last? i'll use someelectrical tape to hold everything in place, and try to fix these cardboard edges becausethey shouldn't be touching. i'll do my best to make it air tight to prevent the wet cardboardfrom drying out too quickly, and then carry it with me for the next couple of hours towatch when for it dies out. ok so now it's more than 2 days later and i really can'tbelieve what i'm seeing. the green light is still on, which means these little penniesare still pumping out juice! this is awesome,
so i wanna try another idea. i've picked upa calculator from the dollar store and i'll remove the screws on the back so i can getto the battery. once that's removed i'll pull the negative and positive leads out of thecasing. and now i'll need to make another penny battery. this time i don't feel likesanding the pennies, so i'm adding these zinc washers i got from the hardware store forabout 3 cents each. i need around 1.5 volts, so i'll use 3 pennies, 3 washers, and 3 piecesof cardboard soaked in vinegar. this time i've rounded the cardboard edges so they won'tbe a problem. and i'll stack them with the washer on the bottom, the cardboard in themiddle, and the penny on top. this is one cell, and i need 3 so i'll stack up 2 more.the penny on top is the positive side and
the zinc washer on bottom is the negative.i'm getting just over 2 volts and 700 microamps, so i'll add wires to the terminals and usesome more electrical tape to hold it together. time to test it on the calculator. i'll pressthe "on" button, and it's incredible, the calculator fires right up! i'm testing outa few functions and everything calculates correctly, so now i just need to clean thesewires up a bit. i'll chip holes in the casing, and hardwire my pennies into the battery leads,then tape the penny stack to the back. a penny powered calculator?! i really am impressedat how well this worked out… …and still patiently waiting for this little green lightto die out. well there's an idea that's worth a few cents. if you like this project perhapsyou'll like some of my others. check them
out at thekingofrandom.com
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