Articles | Page 140 of 264

7 Jan 2016

How to Make a Penny Battery

Making a penny battery is not a practical project. However, it is a practical bit of knowledge to keep in the back of your head.

I used this knowledge to build a larger battery in a mason jar. The same type of science is what makes Edison Batteries work.

What we are making today is voltaic piles

We will build them out of pennies zinc coated washers and bits of paper.

Each cell of a penny, a washer, and a small square of wet paper produces up to about 0.8 volts, and you can stack multiple cells to create higher voltages.

I have done this with after school groups with kids in kindergarten to fifth grade (with various depth of explanation) and it is very useful to introduce chemistry and the fun of DIY.

Some people use 1982-present pennies that have the copper coating sanded off as the zinc, but since it is illegal to deface US currency I use zinc washers (well… to be honest I use zinc washers because it is MUCH easier).

If you want to do anything slightly resembling useful, you will need at least 5 cells – It would take a pile about the size of your living room and 5ft tall to actually run your home, so lighting up a led or sounding a small piezo electric buzzer are about the limits of this tech

Rip up a piece of thin cardboard (I use business cards, but something like a cereal box would probably work) into squares the size of your pennies.

Soak them in vinegar or lemon juice as this is a wet cell (which means as the cardboard dries the cell stops producing electricity)

Layer in the following sequence:

Penny
Soaked Paper
Zinc

Start another cell by stacking a new penny right on top of the copper and then keep this up until you have enough light your led or buzz your buzzer.

I have found more than 5 cells starts to get unwieldy, and trying to use electric tape to hold it together has stymied the video for some time – maybe using a plastic coin roll, or a length of plastic pipe may make this project easier.

A cell like this will only work about 6 hours or so, but like the chlorine battery show potential. If I can every get around to learning to electroplate I will show how to make an Edison nickel iron battery that can be made cheaply and can actually allow you to make batteries out of five gallon buckets that can do usable work.

7 Jan 2016

How to Make a Hot Wire Cutter

I have wanted to build a hot wire cutter for some time. Once I found out that Styrofoam could be used to make patterns for aluminum casting.

This is because it would burn out in a manner similar to lost wax casting. I knew it was just a matter of time before I had to have one.

Since I got back on a pyro video bug and bought some nichrome wire to make rocket ignition squibs.

I decided now would be a perfect time to also use it to build a DIY hot wire cutter.

This was a very simple project that only took a few minutes time, and was built out of scrap I had laying around.

Once my DIY Hot Wire Cutter was finished, the boy and I had a grand time slicing up leftover Christmas Present packaging.

My wife was not pleased at all the scraps and chunks of white Styrofoam.

Eventually, even the boy said it was “too stinky”, but it has promise and I am already planning out new projects and enhancements to my small cutter.

I used this diy hot wire cutter to help insulate my shipping container. However, I made it so I can use Styrofoam to cast aluminum.

This goes to show having skills and making stuff can always come in handy.

7 Jan 2016

The Black Swan

Black Swan events are events hat comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight. Most preppers are preparing for such events.

The Black Swan describes black swan theory and how to thrive during such occurrences.The Author shows in a playful way that Black Swan events explain almost everything about our world, and yet we—especially the experts—are blind to them.

In this second edition, Taleb has added a new essay, On Robustness and Fragility, which offers tools to navigate and exploit a Black Swan world.

The idea of anti-fragility – being robust in the face of danger is something that we preparedness minded folks should understand and internalize.

I reccomend this book just for the added essay, but the entire book is definitely worth reading if you are a thinker type.

If you are a doer, and don’t care how things work then that’s okay too, It is easy to get bog down in the academic. I know that as I sit in my classes I am waiting for the nuggets of practical use.

I know that these things are important, but how can I use the information to make my life better…..

7 Jan 2016

PRN Episode #26 Critical Incident Stress Management

Preparedness is about making small sacrifices in normal times so that you do not have to make huge sacrifices in times of scarcity (at least in this host’s mind) – its not just about buying beans, bullets, and bandages – it’s also about learning, training, and building capability.

David has spent a lot of time taking skills and concepts learned in his professional field of emergency management and relating it to his family’s personal preparedness.

One of those things that relates is knowledge about critical incident stress management. Critical Incident Stress, and Critical Incident Management is directly related to long term responder performance – and un-managed stress can have debilitating effects on the individual and the group. In his time in emergency management, Dave has had the opportunity to attend multiple training courses in this area and has seen first hand how this sometimes overlooked skill is very important to dealing with emergencies at all levels.

In today’s episode David talks about what it is, how to deal with it, its relation to acute stress brought on by the Fight or Flight response, and introduces the concept of Critical Incident Stress Debriefings. This show won’t make you an expert in this field, but it is a good introduction to something valuable that is rarely considered in the personal preparedness community.

Now that I went back to corrections, I find I teach classes on this every month. Critical Incident Stress Management is a big deal, and I imagine it would be have an even bigger impact after a disaster.

The show is scheduled for Monday at 10pm central time at this link.

If you cannot listen on Monday, you can always download the podcast for listening at your own leisure.

7 Jan 2016

The Internet Guide to Survival and Self-Reliance

You could search the internet for weeks and not find half of the expert survival sites in this unique guide. The Internet Guide to Survival and Self-Reliance comes with its own Web site to put all this information just a click away.

The book, The Internet Guide to Survival and Self-Reliance teaches you how to supply your own food, power and shelter; save loads of money; and spark your imagination with creative and resourceful new ways to live a self-reliant life.

While some of the links in the book are not longer active, this is a great concept, and the website address for the book’s site is very useful.

I wish I had thought of this and acted on it first – its that good of an idea.

While it is an older book on the internet, I think it is worth a read.

However, while I would buy this book again, I would try to find it at a used book store or otherwise at a discount. I got mine from the “scruffy” sale at Paladin Press, where they sell damaged books at a discount. Actually I get most of my more “Action” orientated books this way.

I guess the best thing I can say is that I wish I had done this first. Its a great idea for a book.