ELECTRICITY, SURVIVAL BASICS
Q: What is
electricity, exactly? It shows up in nature as a spark or a lightning bolt, but
the electricity challenged are used to taking this for granted, flipping the
switch and the lights come on and the appliances work, but the HOW of this is a
mystery to most, certainly to me. I'm one of the electricity challenged, and
don't I know it.
In a wish to be technically correct, I will be
using some notes I prepared. Please bear with me on this.
I will answer
by talking about the basics. Electricity is just a flow of electrons. Electrons
are a very small particle with a negative charge. Electricity is a particle
flow. It is analogous to water flow.
You mention lightning bolt as a
spark in nature. Some people think these electrons are created at the point o f
the spark. This is not the case electrons are in everything. They are in the
clouds and in the air. When they get pushed in a direction say between clouds
with enough pressure they produce the spark you see.
Current is measured
in amperes. One amp is 63 with 17 zeros after it of electrons flowing in a
conductor past a given point in one sec. This number is not important to
remember. The main concept to remember is one amp is a large quantity of
electrons flowing past a given location in one sec.
In the water analogy
this would be the same as counting the number of water molecules that go past a
given location in any one unit of time. This again would be a very large number
so we typically measure this in cubic feet per minute or more practically
buckets full/hour.
No one likes to work with large numbers so in like
manner the word amperes has been assigned a given quantity flow of electrons in
a unit of time. Now rather than count electrons each time we use them, we can
measure them by the number of buckets full/sec or by simply by saying so many
amps.
Voltage is analogous to pressure. In the water analogy the height
of water determines the amount of pressure. Take the case of the old fashion
water tower that used to be prevalent in cities long ago. The height of the tank
provides the pressure. Those living in lower areas get more pressure. Pressure
in water is measured in lbs per square inch. . In like manner Voltage is the
amount of pressure behind any given electron to cause it to move along the
conductor. A typical car battery for example has a pressure of 12 volts.
One Volt is the amount of pressure necessary to force one Amp of
electrons through a resistor of one Ohm producing one Watt of power. We have all
felt the heat from a 100 watt light bulb. So we have an idea of what one watt
would approximately be.
Ohm is a unit of electrical resistance equal to
the resistance between two points on a conductor when a potential difference of
one volt between them produces a current of one ampere. What this is saying is
when you can take a wire and measure one volt from one end to the other with a
current of one amp flowing you have a wire that has a resistance of one ohm.
This is just an arbitrary amount of resistance based on earlier defined terms.
In the water analogy the smaller the pipe the larger the resistance to flow. In
like manner the smaller the electrical conductor the larger the resistance.
Now back to your "mystery of flipping the switch and the lights come
on". When one takes a very small wire of tungsten and forces lots of electrons
to go through it, what happens? The resistance of the particles flowing cause
heat and this heat has to escape some how. For any given wire a low flow might
give off heat as a toaster does in the infrared range. A larger flow would give
off light as light bulbs do in the visible range. An even larger flow would melt
the wire. This is what happens in a fuse. No mystery here, just small particles
that are not able to be seen with the naked eye that are flowing doing work for
us.
A watt is the product of the voltage in volts and the current in
amperes or amps. 1000 watt is one kilowatt. One watt load that is powered for
one hour will consume one Watthour of power.
DC stands for direct current
and is a flow in one direction. AC stands for Alternating Current and is a push
pull flow, at the rate of 60 times per min.
The following simple formulas
result for DC circuits.
V (volts) = I (Current in amps) * R (Resistance in
ohms)
P (power in watts) = V (Volts) * I (Current in amps)
Watt hours =
watts * hours of use
Ampere-hours = Amps flowing from a battery * number of
hours it flows
These simple formulas are very valuable for determining what
is needed in a circuit to make it work correctly, for understanding batteries,
and power sources.
Does this answer you questions on this
subject?
Q: Alternating Current? Why wouldn't all electricity be
just Direct Current? This seems a more, um, direct approach. Are both systems
being used, in the world of electrical appliances? Is this something I need to
be aware of? What are we getting now, in our service from the electric company?
Are setups either/or, either DC or AC? In particular, what does this mean for
life after the coming pole shift? I found something on the Troubled Times pages,
in the Energy Section.
Tomas Edison the inventor of the light bulb championed DC or direct current
that flows in one direction only. During the same time frame Nikola Tesla
championed AC or alternating current a push pull of flow from the generating
plant. AC won out because it had advantages of using transformers for
distribution. At higher voltages AC is little less dangerous than DC. AC is
easer to step-up to a higher voltages using step-up transformers to allow it to
be piped over a longer distance than DC. DC will not work with transformers. DC
is easer to store as chemical energy in batteries thus used for portability. As
a result today we only get AC from our electric companies. We can convert this
to DC as needed to charge batteries. Batteries give us energy storage and
portability.
I believe power after the coming pole shift will mostly
take two forms, 12 Volt DC and 115 Volt AC. 12 volt batteries will be used for
storage. 115 volt AC will be used for those items we have that will not run
directly on 12 volts. A DC to AC inverter will be used to convert form 12 Volts
DC to 115 AC when needed.
Plan on having several inverters each with a
different power rating. Use the one with the lowest rating that will work at the
time. This saves power usage in the long run. The ones with lower power ratings
draw lower amounts of current when idling with inverter on and with no AC power
is being used.
After the PS the use of existing 12 Volt car batteries for
some will be the only thing available. When preparing before a PS, select and
purchase 6 large 2 volt cells and wire them in series to produce 12 volts. This
gives the most economical maintainable setup.
For portable batteries,
use AAA through D size rechargeable NI-MH or NI-CAD. NI-CAD holds less and has a
slower internal leakage so it will stay charged up longer. NI-CADs can be use in
clocks and things that don't use much current over time. NI-MH works good with
portable communication devices or where light weight and more power is needed.
Does this answer you questions on this subject?
Q: How do
batteries work? How can chemistry hold electricity? And why do the electrons
move from one side of the battery to the other?
There
is something on the Troubled Times pages, that implies different metal on one
side from the other side, so there is a natural flow of electrons in that
direction. It seems these different types of metal, zinc and iron, are not
touching, but a fluid is in between them. So maybe one metal has an attraction
or pull for electrons, and the other normally has an excess or natural push for
electrons, perhaps.
This quote from the Boy Mechanic describes a home
made battery, and it emphasizes that the different metal types should not touch,
using plaster of Paris and paraffin to prevent this. so a flow starts between
them via the fluid, only. I guess the poles, positive and negative, of the
battery are attached to the different metal types. Let me quote:
This example that you read about can be visualized simply as a plate of Zink
and one of Iron with a strong base of Lye for the fluid in between. As explained
it produces 1.2 volts. In actuality any two different metals can be made into a
battery. All that is needed is a strong acid or sometime a strong base. Some
metals work better than others and some acids or basic solutions work better
than others. This is all a given. However, in a primitive environment you have
what you have as a result of scrounging. For example Sulfuric acid can be made
from the sulfur found around volcanic activity. Yellow sulfur melts in super
heated steam form underground and comes to the surface where it cools. To make
Sulfuric acid Sulfur is burned with lots of oxygen and the fumes passed over or
through water. Use preferably distilled water. The water near volcanic activity
can also contain sulfuric acid. It can also contain other salts that are not
good for a battery to hold a charge. A primitive Lye can be made from wood ashes
as a result of a camp or forest fires.
The other thing one needs to know
about batteries, is the more the surface area for each plate the higher the
amount of stored energy. The current capacity is directly related to surface
area of the plates.
Each type of battery has different chemistry some
works better than others. Within a chemical reaction, there is stored the
pressure of pushing electrons. When discharging occurs the chemical reaction is
going into a lower energy state and forcing electrons to be pushed out of the
negative plate in a battery with a given pressure or voltage.
Chemical
reactions are basically ions or compounds that have a charge when in solution.
They move in the solution to the plate they like the most, and in the process
put pressure on the electrons in that plate. When they get to the negative plate
they put pressure on electrons to flow out of that plate. When they get to the
positive plate they want to pull electrons into it. An important concept is
electrons are not being created in a battery; they are only being pumped or
pushed from one plate to the other because of the stored chemical
energy.
The direction of electrical flow is determined by the element and
compounds used in each plate. The reaction is usually reversible - one can pump
electrons in the reverse direction to charge the battery and store energy as a
chemical reaction.
An example is the Lead-Acid Cell. A fully charged cell
has the negative plate made of spongy lead. This is to give it more surface
area. The positive plate is made of lead Peroxide. The electrolyte is mostly
sulfuric acid. For a fully discharged cell both plates are made up of a coating
of lead sulfate and the electrolyte is mostly water.
The cell discharges
when at the electrolyte or acid becomes water and the positive plate or lead
peroxide is used up. The negative plate for this cell is more to complete the
electrical circuit than anything else. The cell charges when lead sulfate goes
into solution making sulfuric acid and the positive plate becomes lead Peroxide
again.
Batteries are often rated in Ampere-Hrs. This is the number of
amps that can be delivered in one hour. It is a figure of merit that gives a
measure of the number of electrons able to be pushed down a wire by the battery
over a given time.
Does this answer you questions on this
subject?
Q: So, you were saying something about putting batteries
in a series, so the flow is stronger? What if one of the batteries goes bad,
does it drag the others down? I suppose there are ways to test if a battery is
good, and what does it mean for a battery to go bad, anyway. Does the metal get
eaten up? Does the fluid have to be acid or alkaline? Sorry to be such a dummy.
When cells or batteries are connected positive terminal to
negative terminal they are end to end they are said to be in series. For a water
flow analogy consider an output of one fire truck connected to the input of
another fire truck. Can you predict the result? The last fire truck can shoot
water much higher than any one truck. It would be the same amount of water but
with much more pressure. This would have application for a fire in a tall
building. So to answer you question yes this increase in pressure could be
considered to be a stronger flow.
Batteries wired in series make for more
voltage. One adds up the voltage of each cell to get the result for the series
connection. The current flow is still the same as any one battery in the string.
If one battery cell [in a series] stops working then the flow is stopped
or slowed down for the rest.
Remember this when it comes to 12 volt
batteries for they are made up of 6 cells of 2 volts/each in series.
When
cells or batteries are connected with positive terminal to positive and negative
to negative they are said to be in parallel. For a water flow analogy, consider
4 fire trucks in parallel side by side all pumping there water on a fire. One
adds up the quantity of water from each to get the total volume flow.
Each is limited to the pressure that can be generated from only one
truck so the pressure is the same for each. This would be good for a large low
building fire. For batteries so connected the current adds up to be the sum of
each. The voltage ends up to be the same as any one of them.
After
several years of working with 6 and 12 volt batteries at a seldom visited remote
site, I have finally learned a few valuable lessons worth sharing. When building
and using a battery bank for remote power the following practical general rules
apply.
General Rule: 1) Do not connect a number of 12 volt batteries in
parallel to make a long term use battery bank. We found this is a good way to
kill off good batteries in short order. Sooner or latter there is enviably one
weak cell in the bunch. This week cell will drain the charge of the rest of the
good batteries and untimely make them all bad.
A weak or bad cell is one
that losses its charge rapidly (due to internal leakage) the resulting
individual 12 volt battery becomes around 11 volts or lower if allowed to set
for a week or so. Excessive internal leakage can be a result of over sulfation
in the cell.
Most 12 volt batteries are sealed on the top and do not
allow for measurement of individual cell voltage. To find a bad cell in a
parallel connection of many 12Volt batteries, one has to charge the parallel
combination and then disconnect all batteries and let them set for a few days to
a week. The batteries with bad cells will ultimately show up with voltages below
12 volts. In a low tech survival environment where one needs to use the
batteries daily this becomes impractical.
A better approach is to use one
battery at a time for power. From time to time completely charging it and
rotating it out to then use another. Watch the voltage of the ones sitting idle
to get an idea of how good or bad they are. If you really are on top of it and
watching it and need the extra immediate power then go for several in parallel
at the most. Try to match up batteries that have the same internal leakage or
self discharging rate when doing this. Don't leave it hooked up this way for the
long term.
Bottom line it is better to let a good battery set idle when
charged than to put it in parallel with other 12 volt batteries. The weakest one
will pull down all the rest and make the majority go bad before there normal
life time is up. Thus the rule --- do not connect 12 volt batteries in parallel
to make a long term use battery bank.
Rule: 2) The deeper the discharged
state of a battery the shorted the time one should wait to charge it. If one
leaves a 12 volt battery discharged for a month or longer it will not fully
charge due to sulfation. This sulfation promotes dead or leaky cells. The longer
it is left in a discharged state the less capacity it will have if it holds a
change at all.
If a battery is only partly discharged at say 70 %, then
the battery can set for much longer (Say 6 months) before it sulfates very much.
Sulfation forms when a cell is discharged. Non-reversible sulfation results when
the battery sits for too long a time in a partly discharged condition. The
sufation crystals become hard and irreversible with time. As a result they then
do not go back into solution during charging. The battery is considered to be
sulfated.
A sulfated 12 battery can sometimes be cured by over charging
it for over a week or so at a minimum of 15 volts. Due to lack of power this can
be hard to do in a primitive survival situation. Another way is to drain the
battery acid and put distilled water in the cells. Let it sit for one hour.
Charge at about 4 amp rate until hydrometer readings does not change over a
period of time. This attempts to redissolve most of the sulfate crystals back
into solution.
Then drain and save this new wash acid. Wash the sediment
out of the cell with more distilled water. It you use non-distilled water it can
introduce salts that cause the battery to lose charge rapidly. Replace with new
acid if you have it. If in a primitive environment, boil down the wash acid to
make it stronger and then combine the original saved acid with the newly created
wash acid and continue to slowly boil it down to an amount that will just fit
back into the original battery.
Use a non-corrosive or glass container
to accomplish this. If the specific gravity gets between 1.25 and 1.3 then you
have enough acid left to do the job.
Rule: 3) If you are making a long
term use battery bank use 6 high capacity single 2 volt cells in series to make
a single 12 volt battery. Get one extra cell to replace one that may go bad in
the future. Chose an amp-hr rating that matches your charging capability. If you
use a wind-mill and only get a small amount of Amp-hours out of your wind don't
chose a high capacity battery bank. You will never keep it charged, the internal
leakage will too much.
The advantage of this method is one can from time
to time measure the voltage of each of the single cells while in operation. This
is done by compare the voltage of each. The one with the consistent lowest
voltage is the one most likely to go bad. It will be the one with the greatest
internal leakage.
Rule: 4) When using a gasoline generator and a battery
charger --- determine you're charging rate in amps and divide that into the
amp-hour ratting of the battery to get how many hours you need to run your
generator. For example 40 amps divided into 200 amp-hours for a battery = 5
hours for a full charge. From time to time say every month or two over charge
the battery bank to balance out the cells. This is called equalization. This
insures each cell is fully charged. Cells become unbalanced with respect to
state of charge with time, if never fully charged. This is due to different
internal leakage rates of each cell.
Rule: 5) Determine your state of
charge by measuring voltage for a battery in a resting state. This is a state of
not being charged and not discharging and has not been actively being changed
for more than 12 hours. Bottom line, wait 12 hours or more after charging and
turn off all load and measure the voltage. A voltage of between 12.6 and 13.2
indicates a full charge and 11.4 to 12.0 indicates discharged depending on local
temperature and age of battery.
Do not bother to purchase expensive
meters that measure state of charge. They end up from personal experience being
more trouble than they are worth. A simple low cost digital volt meter from
Harbor Freight will work fine. Search for item 90899 for $2.99 or item 30756 for
$9.99. Both are a "7 function multi-tester" and will work fine.
Internal
leakage and sulfation are the prominent variables that determine useful battery
life time that one needs to become familiar with and watch for. Batteries do
wear out with repeated charging and discharging. When this happens the negative
plate mostly still there as lead the positive plate is usually eaten up and
there is a lot of lead sulfate down in the bottom of the cell.
A PDF
composed ready to print file can be downloaded from the Troubled Times files
area for the TT-forum, under the folder "Batteries and battery power". The file
"Batteries Lessons learned" has all the details of what I just discussed plus
graphics.
With respect to your question on "Does the fluid have to be
acid or alkaline?" The answer is NO there is such a thing as salt water
batteries. There are Sea water batteries patented that utilizes sea water as the
electrolyte, metals such as aluminum or magnesium as the positive terminal and
solid insoluble chlorides as the negative terminal. A typical combination is
silver chloride as the negative plates and, for example, magnesium for the
positive plate. One can also use lead chloride, cuprous chloride or a lead
chloride/cuprous chloride for the positive plate. A very simple construction
that produces about .5 volt can be made from a penny and a Zink plated screw put
in salt water. 8 of these cells in series are enough to run a led night light.
Copper and Aluminum will produce a .3 volt cell. In a survival situation one
should try other metals that might be available to see what one can get.
Does this answer you questions on this subject?
Q:
Survivors can grab car batteries, dry batteries from stores, and maybe other
types of batteries to use. But these run out. If a battery is worn out in the
Aftertime, after the pole shift, how can we replace them? Can they be repaired,
the acid replaced, or rebuilt?
There are always options. There
is the previously discussed batteries where the electrolyte is Salt water
battery, strong base, or strong acid and the use of any two dissimilar metals.
How to make acids and basic solutions was discussed earlier to some extent.
To some extent Lead-Acid batteries can be rebuilt. The first thing to
try is the desulfation using distilled water trick described earlier. As a last
resort. One can salvage the sulfated lead plates from the negative plates and
reset them up in a container using half of them as positive plates with a week
solution of sulfuric acid and start charging. One should reverse the charge on
the plates for a few cycles then settle down with one polarity. This is
basically how the first Lead-Acid batteries were made. You could burn in oxygen
some lead and then try pasting some of the newly formed lead peroxide and Lead
oxide on to the positive plate and use battery strength sulfuric acid. Run it
through several charge and discharge cycles. This basically a simple explanation
how modern batteries are made. However, there is a lot of patented know-how in
doing this. A good book for the survivalist is called "Secrets of Lead-Acid
Batteries Essential knowledge for Alternate Energy Applications" by T. J.
Lindsay
Does this answer you questions on this subject?
Q:
OK, we've got our batteries, the grid is down, but we can't keep the lights on
forever from batteries. We need to generate power, if only to charge the
batteries. Assuming that wind mills and water wheels will be some of the most
reliable sources, and gas powered generators unlikely to be fueled after a
cataclysm like a pole shift, what does this take? Let me quote from some stuff
you've written in the past, Mike, for Troubled Times.
Gasoline or diesel generators will be used until the fuel runs out. These
will be used to charge batteries for a while. Gas generator power output should
be matched to the maximum charging rate of the battery bank to minimize run time
and save fuel, target to only need to run it maybe once every week or
two.
Charging batteries and generating power over the long term will be
by using, windmill wind power such as AirX or Arogen6 that sells for about $1000
with tower included. Micro-Hydro power, hand cranking battery powered portable
drill generators, water powered portable drill generators, and bicycle powered
portable drill generators will be other methods of generating power.
The
value of Micro Hydro power should not be under estimated. An off the shelf water
pump that has an induction motor to run it can actually be converted into an AC
generator. One runs a pipe up stream to get enough head pressure to turn this
pump at close to rated speed.
One adds a few AC capacitors to tune it to
60 cycle resonance. Then start it turning and a quick zap with a bit of DC to
get the magnetic field going and viola you have micro-hydro power that can
actually produce 60 cycle alternating current. It can produce as much voltage as
the pump is rated for. This could be 120 volts 240 volts etc. This is in common
practice in developing countries like India. For how to implement this pick up a
copy of
"Pumps as Turbines A user's guide" by Arthur Williams and
"Motors as Generators for Micro-Hydro Power" by Nigel Smith
Does
this answer you questions on this subject?
Q: How does the round
and round of a wind mill or water wheel or big gen translate into an electron
flow? Electro-magnetic power generation? The electrons chasing the magnet, in
the direction of the round and round? You provided some stuff for the Troubled
Times pages that included using an electric drill to convert the round and round
to an electron flow into batteries. I was fascinated. The drill part was
replaced with a crank or a connection to the round and round, and the
electricity ended up coming OUT of the wires that you plug into the wall. Here's
what you said about that:
Hook up 2 cordless drills to charge a 12 volt battery. A bicycle driven emergency battery charger can be made rather simply from two cordless permanent magnet drills and commonly available parts that will produce from 10 to 45 watts charging capacity. This can be used to charge 12 Volt storage batteries or a modified NiCad battery pack.
There is a basic know observation or fact in electricity that if one passes a
wire though a magnetic field electrons will begin to flow. The faster one moves
the wire the higher the pressure or voltage on every electron in the wire trying
to push it out the end of the wire. Note that there is the more resistance to
pushing it through the field when it is pushed faster. What is happing is we are
converting mechanical energy into pumping the electrons in the wire in one
direction or another. The shape and design of the motor or generator allows for
maximum change in magnetic field strength across a coil of wire. A simple AC
generator might be pictured as a hoarse shrew magnet with a coil of wire
rotating around on a shaft between the north and south poles.
In like
manner a typical alternator or motor has field coils around the outside of an
armature that rotates on the shaft. These field coils draw current to make the
strong magnetic field that the wires in the armature cut through. If in place of
these coils we place a set of permanent magnets then we do not have to waste any
of the generated current to produce this field. Thus this becomes the design of
most permanent magnet (PM) motors. Any PM motor can be used as a generator. All
one has to do is to keep it turning in the same direction as the motor would be
turning to produce the same plus and minus polarity across the output wire
leads.
Battery operated hand drills are designed to be light and
portable. Thus they use PM motors which can be used as a generator by simply
turning it. Test this for your self take the battery pack out of any battery
operated hand drill and hook a couple of jumper lads to a volt meter or an amp
meter then hold the trigger down and see what you get while turning the chuck by
hand. If this generates electricity then the unit has a PM motor in it.
PDF composed ready to print files can be downloaded from the Troubled
Times files area for the TT-forum, under the folder "DC Power". There are 4
files that have all the details of how to make DC power with these potable
drills along with graphics.
Does this answer you questions on this
subject?