sky current battery charger

[Roadscholar]

Hi folks

found this on the net, and wanted to know if it was something that might work or not.



www.angelfire.com/ak5/energy21/capacitorcharger.htm

[rreidnauer]

I've seen this discussed before. The way I most commonly heard it told, was to run a thin wire up on a weather balloon.

It should work . . . . . . . . . . but, the wattage will be very low, and like the article says, you need air movement and the air must be dry (cold) to get results. He says he can light a neon bulb on a cold, windy night. I believe him. (even though I doubt he's actually performed these experiments himself, considering the last sentence on the page) It could be one of those little, orange neon bulbs commonly found in power strips. They require next to no power at all to operate.

Simply put, if this $10 electric generator really worked, (effectively) I'd doubt people who live off-grid would be paying $5/watt for solar panels.

[ChainsawGrandpa]

I know someone who is doing something remotely similar.

I was concerned about a friend of mine...unable to find him. Called his
web manager, but her husband answered. He was getting his concrete
pads in the ground so he could work on the towers over the winter. He
explained how it would work, and was pretty confident in the system as
he was sinking more than a few dollars into the project. It might be a
big waste of money for someone like me. I believe he will get it to produce
plenty of useable power. As a young man, he was on Dr. Teller's team.

The guys I work with think I have a high powered engineering mind (of course
I suspect a few of them may be low-brow mouth breathers*) but next to Stan
I feel like I'm an idiot.

-Rick

(*a tip o' the hat to David Letterman)_

[Roadscholar]

Hi Folks

Thanks for the input on this.

Rod's response that this would not work as a generater was not what I had in mind. I thought rather that this might be used to trickle charge the batteries on the cheap and maybe something one oculd scale up for home use. The article points out that length of cable used was such a factor. Thinking not so much in off grid terms as having something basic and scaleable in place in case the grid goes down or off. Have a bit more on this but will start with this for now on this thread.

Roadscholar

[rreidnauer]

Well, I didn't say it would not work. Rather, it wouldn't work well. There's two points that which bear evidence to that. The first one I already mentioned. If usable amounts of cheap, easy power could be gotten, you'd have people doing it. The second is the fact that you never see any documented output numbers from these experiments. Yes, they'll say it gives you a heck of a shock, it charges my batteries in 3 days, (how big a battery, and how discharged was it to begin with?) or it lights a neon bulb, (how big of a bulb?) but no one ever comes out and says, "My sky current generator puts "X" watts into my batteries when the wind blows at "X" MPH and humidity levels are "X" %." Why? I already said it. It's a neat experiment, but nothing more.

I'm not trying to knock it. I'd love nothing more than for something like this to work, but I have to be realistic.

[Roadscholar]

Hi Rod

Thanks for that last reply. Thats what I needed for an answer.
Here is another site I found on my net venture into finding out about
a basic home power setup:

http://r-charge.com/

Check out their R&D section and let me know what you think.

Roadscholar