Isn't beer wonderful?

[TheVictim]

I've been playing around with electrolytic transistors (again), trying to see which electrolytes offer the highest gain. My test isn't perfect (my grid is open on the bottom, allowing a path past it to the food can acting as the anode, but it gives me good results relative to each other).

Here is what I have so far:

vinegar, diluted with water: loss of around .5
saturated salt solution: 3.38
baking soda solution: 3.36
liquid dish soap solution: 1. no gain, no loss.
orange gatorade: 2
urine (hey, this is science. I THOURGHLY washed my equipment afterwards) 1.5
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (again, this is science, sacrifices are sometimes necessary in the quest for knowledge): 5.8!!!
Aji-Mirin (japanese rice wine for making sushi): 4.1

I've been dumping in whatever I can find around the house. The beer and the rice wine contain alcohol, I'm thinking this might be having a beneficial effect. Both contain sugars, and the Mirin contains salt as well. The beer also contains isomerized alpha and beta acids from hops. I have hops around (I homebrew) so I am going to try some hop teas as well.

I'm going to try and make control solutions consisting of varying amounts of alcohol (I have Everclear handy, so I can calculate the amounts fairly accurately), sugars, salt, and acidic elements.

 

[picbits]

Try Guinness

It will store everything up until first thing in the morning then will dump it all out in on big go .................

 

[TheVictim]

It could be the carbonation, I just got 3.7 out of Dr. Pepper. Hmmm. Why did the post get moved, it WAS electronic content...

 

[picbits]

Well the post got moved after I typed out my first response

 

[TheVictim]

That's OK, the beer just lost to wheat flour mixed with water into a thick slurry at a gain of 6.8. I tried using beer to make the flour slurry but only got a gain of 6.3

 

[Optikon]

What will you learn from all this?

 

[TheVictim]

How to make amplifiers out of empty cans and household supplies. Light Karo Syrup (undiluted) just got me a gain of 10. That is a useful amount of gain. I think I found my ideal electrolyte. Once I improve my grid gain should go up by quite a bit.

edit: I made a 2nd one in a pill bottle using folded aluminum foil for electrodes rubber banded to paper towels for closer proximity and less impedance. It uses less syrup too. I'm getting a voltage gain of 35!

 

[Marks256]

What is an electrolytic transistor?

 

[TheVictim]

You can make a very simple one by sticking 3 wires close together in a row into a potato. One far wire is the cathode, the center wire acts as the control, and the other far wire is the anode.

Connect your cathode to ground and your anode to the positive supply through a 10k resistor to act as a voltage divider. 9v makes a good supply. Take your output from the anode (it will be inverted just like a common emitter transistor amplifier). For testing i've been using 10 millivolts. You should get a gain somewhere between 3 and 10 with a potato, just make sure your wires are NOT dissimilar metals or you'll have a battery.

Electrolytes can exhibit gain in the same manner.

BTW, you can get more gain from the potato by running a DC current through it until it turns green at one terminal, then use the wire in the green area for the control voltage.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

It could be the carbonation, I just got 3.7 out of Dr. Pepper. Hmmm. Why did the post get moved, it WAS electronic content...

It got moved because it's not really electronic content, and I was generous enough to move it to **** Chat, when I thought the Waste Bin would be more appropriate!

 

[TheVictim]

non-practical experiments just for curiousity are considered fodder for the waste bin?

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

non-practical experiments just for curiousity are considered fodder for the waste bin?

I think 'non-practical' speaks for itself?.

 

[Optikon]

non-practical experiments just for curiousity are considered fodder for the waste bin?

Give us something we can use..

I'll get slightly interested when you make a functional opamp out of pill bottles & aluminum foil.

 

[Hero999]

Have you tried any spirits?

What about other chemicals often found in foods such as sucrose, fructose, citric acid glycerol etc.? All are available from most chemists.

 

[TheVictim]

I have a book on order from the ARRL "Instruments of Amplification" that details how to use garden chemicals as amplifiers, and also how to build vacuum tubes.

 

[Marks256]

I have a book on order from the ARRL "Instruments of Amplification" that details how to use garden chemicals as amplifiers, and also how to build vacuum tubes.

Have a scanner?

 

[TheVictim]

I'm not the only wack job on the net that makes electronics from household items. **broken link removed** details how to make a rectifier from borax or baking soda. It even glows in the dark!

As for the book, I can post some info from it, but I'm not going to defraud the author by scanning it onto the net.

 

[Hero999]

If it glows in the dark then it's more than a rectifier, it's an LED!

 

[Marks256]

Someone should try to figure out how to change the color... more chemicals?

 

[Roff]

You can keep Nigel at bay by making one that's programmable.
I think this is interesting stuff. Not interesting enough to try it myself, but interesting.