» MAKE: NOISE — Discuss this article

Showing messages 1 through 7 of 7.

• "Someone" left their light on
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  Push the car close enough to the car with the head lights on, pop off the cover for the light, unscrew the light bulb, attach the jumper cables to the battery, sharpen the both ends of each pencil and attach them to the other ends of the cables, and then touch the inside of the light sockett and drive a way. Would that work?

  Posted by Cizmatical on July 13, 2005 at 19:36:48 Pacific Time

• "Someone" left their light on
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  You left your lights on, that's why the battery is dead.

  Posted by Ian12 on May 03, 2006 at 00:28:58 Pacific Time

• 
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  If you're thinking of making a battery with limes, think a minute.
  
  Remember science class? it took three or four fat lemons just to run a pocket calculator or digital clock.
  
  It takes about 400 amps to start even a compact car engine, more in cold weather(which this supposedly is). A lemon produces about .0001 amps, a lime is smaller and would probably produce even less.
  
  How many limes would it take to start a car? How many do you have?

  Posted by Dan_Andersen on May 03, 2005 at 13:14:38 Pacific Time

• limes, sulphur, you name it...
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  We realized the fruit battery scenario wouldn't get us very far, so my husband and i were thinking maybe the answer is somehow making enough acid to fix the battery. you have H202, you have sulphur, you have phosphoric acid in the sodas, there's citric acid in the limes, and there's NaCl in the chips. Oh, and K in the bananas, not that that's all that useful. So we were thinking there had to be a way to make a strong enough acid to do something with the battery... Admittedly, we've only worked on this while walking the dogs and there are many distractions, so maybe we're thinking wrong here. Any thoughts? We keep coming back to a multistep chemlab thing. I'd really love to see a solution.

  Posted by evakovacs on May 03, 2005 at 13:51:05 Pacific Time

• chemicals?
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  we're thinking that the alternator is too deeply buried in the engine to be much use, so we were looking at the supplies and thinking maybe some chemistry set solution is the answer. i guess it depends on the car... so where is the answer, guys? we're dying here.

  Posted by evakovacs on May 02, 2005 at 12:54:49 Pacific Time

• Solution?
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  What's the solution? It's killing me! :-)

  Posted by wrenhunt1 on April 26, 2005 at 05:47:17 Pacific Time

• Solution?
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  I am also interested in hearing possible solutions to this problem. I believe the solution will involve the alternator and using steam (from the water & the sterno) to spin it. I've heard other suggestions about building a voltaic cell from the limes, and using that to charge the battery.
  In general, the solution will involve creating one or more forms of energy, from the items in the list, and converting it to another form(s) to ultimately charge the battery.
  If this scenario happened to me, I would definetely be stuck in the woods!!

  Posted by BarFly on April 27, 2005 at 11:38:12 Pacific Time