Old Eti article

I remember a Elector...or ETI article (one of the European Hobbiest mags) about generating electriciy from the plants in the garden. I have since lost it, but seeing how there are Supercaps, and Joule thiefs, and other tricks developed to light a LED from practically nothing, this may be something interesting to light LED garden lights from.
I dont really rememberer the article...anyone have a copy...and what do you guys think of this.
I remember that it was written by a REVREND....something, and that he is actually quite a prolific writer for Europen Hobby Mags.

One electrode goes in the dirt, one electrode is attached to the top of the plant. The voltage/current is incredibly low. Just like a potato battery only it's live bio-electricity. The current would be way too low and impractical to get it high enough to light an LED lighting as each plant has to be fully electrically isolated. I can't recall where I read it but someone did this with about a dozen plants in a 'battery' and manage to power a small LCD clock, like a potato battery, only with less current voltage per cell.

Ok, sorry... for some reason, I thought that there was a bit more voltage or current being produced than from your standard potatoe battery.
As I said, the article was a long ways back....so my memory isnt as good as it could be.

Believe me, if there were usable energy there there's a VERY good chance someone would have already tried to do it =) Would make a novel project, to try different plants to find out if there was a voltage constant. I don't think the voltage was dependant on plant height, just on type.

bigkim100 said:

I remember that it was written by a REVREND.

Click to expand...

Sorry, I can't help you with your specific article, but that sounds like Rev. Thomas Scarborough. I have seen many of his circuits in various magazines over the years. though a quick google came up with this;
**broken link removed**

Edit: Have a look at this;
**broken link removed**