Using local outdoors 'grounded' mains electricity

[Slider2732]

I've been reading the September 1899 entries of the Colorado Springs Notes:
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/tesla/coloradonotes/coloradonotes.htm

Well, it got me thinking about grounded energies again, collectively, with household mains in our local environments.
Particularly when he explains out about the water pipe experiments. Also, in the January 1900 section, where he has some photos taken and talks of the distance tests of that snow bound location.

Specifically, to forward my own findings within the confines of my back yard.
I've mentioned it a couple of times, but, if you take 2 x metal rods (at least 1ft) of galvanized steel for example and place them over 4ft apart, you can connect a crystal radio earphone and hear the 60Hz mains buzz.
It doesn't seem to matter where around the 60ft backyard the rods are placed, the same level of noise results.
That energy can be used !
How ?
If it can drive the earpiece, then it must be able to be collected.
I'm searching for the best method of how to do that. A simple FWBR of germanium diodes may be the answer, plus storage cap. But, i'd like to know if connecting coils, or a vertical aerial of some description or other unthought of methods, could yield something usable from that apparent source of unused and wasted energy. A magnifying receiver, if you will. 

At the moment, I don't really care if it's 0.2V at 1uA, which may be likely due to the sensitivity of such an earpiece...but I don't know how much exactly there is and I don't know that it can't be summed via the use of several rods placed as collectors.
For example, would it be in any way advantageous to construct a version of a crystal set, with the antenna section also being terminated at a distant ground connection ?

[Aking.21]

 I've discovered is that if you put electricity into those ground rods (taking care to observe polarity)  then the voltage increases dramatically and slowly
dies down. I've even shorted the output with a 100 watt incandescent bulb and the rate of voltage decrease seemed to be unaffected.
It is not a fully scientific experiment - just an indication of what to do next. So I've gone from 0.1 volts 1.25 volts, then a slow decline over several minutes.
So there appears to be enough voltage to power a transistor, although I haven't tried it yet.

Here's a link to the schematics:

http://www.energeticforum.com/274219-post275.html

[Aking.21]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGIJSWirhPw

[Paul-R]

Particularly when he explains out about the water pipe experiments...

It is always good to remember that in those days, water pipes were made of lead or ferrous. They went deep into the ground and/or roadway.

Nowadays, it is possible, even likely, that a water pipe will be plastic and therefore a worthless earth connection.

[Slider2732]

Thanks guys, very very useful posts

I hadn't seen LS's latest upload. It brings in much of the thinking, experimental oddities and interests that probably many of us share. Except, being Lasersaber, he's done it in a way that screams 'I have to replicate this right now' lol
It seems to show potential differences quite clearly, where a circuit connected to a strongly opposite polarity that's unconnected to anything else, can influence its operation. Reminds of the trick to starting some wireless electricity circuits by using a piezo BBQ lighter.
How on earth the video has 12 dislikes is beyond me.

Own experiments have shown odd effects and I was/am very interested in Grumage's back garden experiments of a similar nature. Graham has apparently run out of time or such to continue, but I do hope he does so.
One of my own observations was when solar charging a car battery. i could connect an LED to just the positive terminal and via a blocking oscillator to a ground post. It fired up.

The vid above also shows the odd effects of solar charging the previously rubbish, alum converted battery, with a set of solar bits that totaled 40V but only a hundred or so mA.

Related to all this are the experiments a couple of years back with the Stubblefield telephone type of circuits.
In one fun quick test, that was the transmission of music, from the PC in the house, out to the backyard over 1 wire. it works with the earphone output from PC speakers, but would be much enhanced by using an amplifier.
What you do, is plug in a jack plug, but only run the signal wire, not the ground part outside.
Attach a 1/4W regular 8ohm speaker to the wire and put a 1ft metal rod in the ground that connects to the other side of the speaker.
Audio will be heard

I think the direction will be similar to Lasersaber's circuit for the moment (thanks very much A.King for the other circuit types to try) and i'll see about using just the ground itself to fire one up.
Perhaps related, is that when using my galvanism powered Garden lights from a few years back now, the earth around the electrodes would dry in the area they were put. Move a light even an inch away and it would again fire up for a few days. Water the ground, same thing, it would fire back up. The drying of the ground has always been of interest. 

[Grumage]

Own experiments have shown odd effects and I was/am very interested in Grumage's back garden experiments of a similar nature. Graham has apparently run out of time or such to continue, but I do hope he does so.
One of my own observations was when solar charging a car battery. i could connect an LED to just the positive terminal and via a blocking oscillator to a ground post. It fired up

Dear Mark.

On the contrary, I have been quite busy !! If there are any sceptics reading this, I suggest they look away now !! Nothing to see here, move along !! 

I have been Dowsing the area, the HARTMANN grid was so easy to define, maybe stronger than the CURRY ? I was able to establish the correct angle and distance between the grid lines. ATM I have a load of twigs defining the grid.

I have somehow managed to scare off the electrons !!    I reverse polarised the rods and now there is next to nothing    More to come, I hope?

Cheers Grum.

[Slider2732]

 
Excellent ! was really hoping that you hadn't passed along the baton, which I thought the other thread had implied.
I should catch up there perhaps, to learn about how you defined the grid.
For some odd reason, which my wife brought to my attention, I always face East. Every table/workbench/area has me sitting in that direction. It wasn't realised, but at our old house, both at the dining room table and at the basement workbench, I faced that direction !
So, just to say, there seems to be something about direction and perhaps we tune in naturally to energy waves and influences. It also makes some sense of dowsing.

Have built a Lasersaber Tesla Torch here this morning.  I intend to find out where he put the germanium diode in his latest video (likely to the Base in series with the LED's ?). His build video for the torch was followed real time, allowing a catch up with parts etc as he drilled bits of 3D printed material lol
It's a surprisingly fun little circuit. The middle LED will fade out while the other 2 carry on brightly. It can dim and then re-brighten for some reason. My coil is wound on a ferrite choke from a TV circuitboard. 60 turns on the secondary, 20 turns primary. MPSA18, 1 meg ohm resistor.
While it does use at least 3V to start, it could be altered to run like a conventional blocking oscillator and therefore be of harvesting use in the backyard.
Interestingly, 1 coil side was tried wired up backwards and, while it would start, it needed a finger touching the positive side of the LED's to start up.

Some time ago, a wearable bracelet was made with a very similar circuit inside. That one has copper and galv steel plates underneath that touch the skin when worn. On a humid day (summer) the LED's come on very well.

Something between the two is what i think would work well outdoors...rather than a flashing oscillator, constant light.

Pic below is of the LS torch circuit, but since then it has had the tank circuit shown on the left removed. Runs for over 6 minutes on 330uF.

[Grumage]

Dear Mark.

It has nothing to do with religion ??   

Sorry, I am in one of those moods today !!   

Cheers Grum.

[Slider2732]

Haha, no religion intended...well, wife is a spiritual type, energy beads and such. For some reason, non denomination spiritual women over 40 seem to acquire purple clothing. I made fun of that so much that she bought a big purple dressing gown !

Update. I have a decent enough, though unremarkable oscillator going outside.
The vid is below, but is rather moot, because I found out that by disconnecting the positive side, it still works the same when the copper is held in the hand. Still, only 1 conventional connection I suppose.

To 'play along at home' as they say, just build a Lidmotor 'Penny', set the pot to full (1 meg), connect the negative side to the ground itself and hold a piece of copper in your hand as the positive.

[Slider2732]

Quick update, to show the hand held copper, but galv steel piece in the ground.
Oscillator runs similarly to above.

[TinMan]

How about tree's Mark as your power/grounding source.
Dont ask me how we get a signal or power from to of the same trees with the same grounding potential
But hey--it work's The LED gets much brighter when the wind blows for some reason,and the signal on the scope gets much stronger at the same time-->static charge maybe?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X0ME8eygwg

[Farmhand]

I seen a similar thing Tinman, I once scoped a tree by hammering a nail into the trunk about 10 feet up and using the ground as the reference I scoped the nail up in the tree, what I seen was a frequency in the 10's of Khz and when the wind blew the amplitude rose, the frequency changed, and the trace seemed to get an offset. I only used a dodgy nano scope and so I didn't get any very good traces to look at, they were a bit pointy. The electric fence gave similar signals if I scope across the live and the ground when it is unpowered. I'm guessing the trees and the fence both are picking up the same signals and mish mashing it to become what I see.

The tree top is up in the higher potentials and the tree has a fairly high resistance, so a voltage difference should occur between the ground and the tree top. Also different trees might have a different phase compared to each other due to wind action timing even though they all are in the same ground.

I put this type of research to the bottom of my list because I couldn't justify building smaller and smaller devices to harness micro watts. However I did find it interesting to use a small power source such as a galvanic battery or thermoelectric module to gather free energy and use that to charge a supercap over a long period then use the supercap to run a LV boost circuit to power LED's as a torch or to charge small batteries.

If it's free then the capacitor losses and the circuit losses don't matter much. And once we know how to do it fairly well we can slap one together any old time we might need it or use the one in the drawer already. From memory I was collecting several hundred Joules over a periods of several hours, which I could use in a few minutes of powering an LED or three at full voltage DC.

..

[Slider2732]

Very cool info TinMan and Farmhand, thanks very much.

Being as we don't have palm trees in our backyard, I wonder if there are differences in tree structures.
Own thinking is that it's related to tapping the sap and the tree height being how the power is derived...doesn't explain 2x same nails, same copper wire and same type of tree though !
Wind. Hmm, has to be the flexing I would think, like moving a time worn electrode around in a mildly abrasive electrolyte.
We only have 2 trees left, after 2 others died off in 2012. The 2 remaining are a Pecan and an American Elm but are the oldest of the 4 originals and still going. To wire up i'm going to have to go straight across the walkway to the car...the oscillator will go slap bang on the walkway, to show where the wire is. Can tell the wife then that it's her own fault she tripped over it, it was marked by a flashing light   


Just had a thought - you could calibrate a PC prog or Arduino etc for wind data. However much is going to the garden light circuit is the general reading of wind speed. Upload that data to ThingSpeak.com say and it could form a real-time graph for your local conditions.
It could be done as a free to run IoT (internet of Things) system too, being as Aussie land gets plenty of sun.
250mA 3V solar panel, ESP8266 WiFi module, data input on one of the GPIO's and a nifty program. Total cost would be about $10.

[TinMan]

Very cool info TinMan and Farmhand, thanks very much.

Being as we don't have palm trees in our backyard, I wonder if there are differences in tree structures.
Own thinking is that it's related to tapping the sap and the tree height being how the power is derived...doesn't explain 2x same nails, same copper wire and same type of tree though !
Wind. Hmm, has to be the flexing I would think, like moving a time worn electrode around in a mildly abrasive electrolyte.
We only have 2 trees left, after 2 others died off in 2012. The 2 remaining are a Pecan and an American Elm but are the oldest of the 4 originals and still going. To wire up i'm going to have to go straight across the walkway to the car...the oscillator will go slap bang on the walkway, to show where the wire is. Can tell the wife then that it's her own fault she tripped over it, it was marked by a flashing light   


Just had a thought - you could calibrate a PC prog or Arduino etc for wind data. However much is going to the garden light circuit is the general reading of wind speed. Upload that data to ThingSpeak.com say and it could form a real-time graph for your local conditions.
It could be done as a free to run IoT (internet of Things) system too, being as Aussie land gets plenty of sun.
250mA 3V solar panel, ESP8266 WiFi module, data input on one of the GPIO's and a nifty program. Total cost would be about $10.

Mark-do not use copper screws or nails to drive into your tree's,or you will have two more dead tree's to remove.

[Slider2732]

Have used galv steel...the idea being to use the same stuff as has gone in the ground as a fence for probably 30 years. It's amazingly resilient.

No luck yet, though have only used 1 diode so far and connected the negative side to the earth.
Kinda had the thought of a Tesla radiant system with this. Maybe it would work if I put a topload on the tree  
Next to try the 2 trees and an FWBR.


Ya know, I have no troubles at all with the thinking that 4 trees in your back garden could work as a send receive of signals. 2 for 1 system, 2 for another. Tune both to the same frequency, using an extra coil on each of specific inductance.
Then, open/close the connection of one and see if the other responded.
Push that further by tuning your system to a frequency and i could tune to the same here. Morse messages could be sent by interrupting the connections. Feeble signals and all, but the ground is all connected across the planet. Then, raise money for a large shuttlecock shaped structure and put it, oh I dunno, somewhere such as Long Island in New York and....wait, damn, already been done.



Just to note - with the steel in the ground and holding the copper experiment. Only in the ground does that work. I tried different potentials, such as a car battery Negative terminal and other methods...none have worked. Just the ground.

[Slider2732]

Update, no joy.
Looking at the Pecan, it's not doing well. Leaf growth is far less than it should be and 2 branches did fall off it earlier this year. The pecan nuts themselves were rubbish last year, each had a worm in it ! probably handy for Absinth drinkers or fishermen.
So I wonder if there is even sap to be connected to.