Fricking cool. From [a href="vny!://latteier.com/potato/"]vny!://latteier.com/potato/[/a]
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[/font][p class="instructions"][font size="1"]Click on thumbnail image to see full size picture.[/font][/p][a class="caption" href="vny!://latteier.com/potato/detail.jpg[/img]
[img]vny!://latteier.com/potato/install-small.jpg" alt="Installation view" title="Installation view" border="0" height="206" width="300"] Installation view[/a]
[/td][td width="50"] [/td][td][h1 class="title"]500 lb Potato Battery.[/h1] I built a potato battery out of 500 pounds of potatoes. It powered a small sound system. With the help of the [a href="vny!://www.red76.com/"]Red 76[/a] crew 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. [/p] Batteries work by allowing electrons to pass from one electrode to another. In this case the potato provides phosphoric acid, which enables a chemical reaction causing electrons flow from copper to zinc. The zinc came from galvanized nails and copper came from small pieces of copper. You don't have to use potatoes; any acidic medium such as citrus fruit will work. I chose potatoes because they are traditional and cheap. [/p] 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.[/p] [p style="font-weight: bold;"]Don't eat potatoes after using them for a battery.[/p][/td][/tr][/tbody][/table]
