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Salt Water Powered Paper Lights

Salt Water Powered Paper Lights
Here are two design variations on a traditional voltaic cell. Both designs are solder less and easy to construct from common household items. The flower and lamp are basically giant paper batteries with the wetted paper acting as a salt bridge between the wires. 
 
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Step 1The Frame

The Frame
I used the cardboard from a box of soda as the base of the lamp and construction paper for the shade. After making 6 pairs of fairly evenly spaced holes in the base I rolled the paper and marked where the holes lined up- in this example they were an inch apart. It's important that the wetted paper containing the wires doesn't touch it's neighbor or the current won't know where to flow. Cut v-shaped pieces out near the bottom where the shade connects to the base to prevent that from happening.
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22 comments
Jul 23, 2011. 2:02 PM-max- says:
to make them glow brighter, replace the 5mm led with a super flux led. or a power led and instead of salt, SULPHURIC ACID OR HYDROCHLORIC ACID
Jul 16, 2011. 2:12 PMWiredWebbo101 says:
Absolutely brilliant. I am a great fan of the KISS principle and this applies on all fronts. Thanks very much for sharing this with us.
Jun 2, 2011. 5:03 PMjim_2000 says:
I love this project. I'm always looking for simple, safe, cheap electronics projects to introduce kids to the world of circuit design.
May 18, 2011. 11:55 AMflyingpuppy says:
Great home-schooling project! Will favorite this one.
May 13, 2011. 4:29 AMmadaeon says:
May I note that you should have not read the Share Alike policy that is used here.
When people recreate, remix an instructable, or any other work, based on the work of other people, you should credit the originale Author.
And neither here or in any other website where you mentioned your work, you say that it is inspired my my instructable published more than one year ago.

http://www.instructables.com/id/The-micro-Lemon-Battery-reusable-1-hour-of-led-l/

A credit would have been appreciated.
Marin Davide
(Madaeon)
May 13, 2011. 8:44 PMbajablue says:
Hi... could you please provide a link to Instructables' "share-alike" policy? I found an Instructable I'd like to take to a higher level, but want to give well-earned credit to the original Instructable Author. Thanks in advance!
May 14, 2011. 12:58 AMmadaeon says:
Sure ;) Here you are:

Simple version:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/

Extended:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/legalcode
May 14, 2011. 5:23 PMbajablue says:
Thanks so much!
May 13, 2011. 9:28 AMtsagert says:
Credit is earned, not demanded. Bear with me on these;

1. She doesnt picture a lemon, nor use lemon juice in this Instructable.
2. She uses voltage generated by using two dissimilar metals for a battery, not a lemon nor its juice, as you use as your final power source.
3. You are not the first person on Instructables, nor on the planet to use a lemon as a component in a voltage device because your instructable was posted a year ago, nor is she the first to use saltwater.
4. You could have used the "Private Message" feature to contact her regarding your concerns; but it appears you want to publicly accuse her.
5. Public accusations like your claim do nothing but let the readers think she may be guilty of what you accuse her of. I dont think she is, and to me you are being mean.
6. Being mean breaks the "be nice" policy.

I doubt she was the one posting this on hackaday. The submitter probably hasnt seen yours at all.

While you might have a claim about the plant/flower-like design, that design exists in nature...so giving you the benefit of the doubt, if she'd seen your instructable, she should mention it. If she hasnt, then I dont think she must.
Regardless, links between all similar projects would be nice for people wanting to build a device like this. If I were her, or you, I'd link to the other.

I compare this to a basketball player patenting the "lay-up", then claiming other players need to credit him if they had used part of his technique by jumping.

"Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery", or something along those lines. You should feel good about similar information you share to be presented to a larger audience; isnt that one of the benefits of Instructables?

With that said, madaeon, your project mentions many details of your trial and error, and is quite excellent.
May 17, 2011. 6:41 AMGrundalizer says:
I agree
May 13, 2011. 1:59 PMmadaeon says:
1-2-3 Reading this made me think at first that you didn't get my point and/or didn't have a look at my instructable. Making a battery using electrolyte reactions, using a flower structure, where the petals are the support of the reaction, part of the lamp design, and not soldering but making the electrodes going trough the petals, Yes, I am sorry to disappoint you but I was, actually, the first on instructables to use this design on an homemade electrolyte battery, and I like to challenge you to find another "On the Planet" with this design, older than mine, in the story of homemade batteries, with a design even similar to mine. You will find nothing but stacks of pennies and lemons with sticks on them.

This one is clearly inspired by mine, and at first I loved it! Someone is actually teaching using this! It's nice that i published it.. hey wait, she doesn't mention mine, or at least where she got it.. Then, hey, on this site they talk about her and how clever she was...

Am I wrong when I think that one line, to say "I took idea from this, stop." would have been appreciated? Should I write to ask this? I don't like when the system works like, I present this as my idea, hope no one notice, if so, well I will say sorry and post a line.

Sharing your ideas here for free, you think at least you will get a line when someone uses your idea.

But maybe after all I am too strict, she's just a teacher and I am pleased to know that these children have had a fun lesson ;)

So this will be also my last post on this topic.
Oct 10, 2011. 12:30 PMDIY-Guy says:
Thank you for letting this thread die. You've done the right thing and we appreciate it a lot.

Looking forward to more instructables from you Mad-Aeon. :)
May 13, 2011. 4:50 AMtsagert says:
Nickle and Zinc would be the two best/cheapest combinations for differential metals with 0.36 megajoules per kilogram. It should be about 1.5 volts, enough to make a 2v LED light up pretty good. I'd purchased quite a bit in wire form at an online jewelry craft supplier (cheap, but I had to buy a lot of it). Grats, by the way; your project was featured on Hackaday this morning.
May 11, 2011. 8:57 PMJohenix says:
Have you tried this with aluminum foil (even pop and beer cans) and copper foil or window screening using a cloth or fiberglass cloth (Bondo Auto repair kit) seperator and add a bit of glycerine to the salt water mix (to adsorb moisture from the air)?

The craft felt may be too thick for this to work.
May 11, 2011. 1:23 PMdepotdevoid says:
How awesome! Could you do this with fabric instead of paper?

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Author:emdaniels(Emily Daniels)
non-evil completely sane citizen scientist & developer