Recently, The Atlantic reported on a very interesting interview that appeared on PBS News Hour. Syrian activist and journalist, Omar Maquad, spoke about how they MacGyvered a solution for charging their mobile phones when the military cut them off the power grid.
We used to — a glass of water with two batteries, Duracell or something else. This already exists everywhere. We use it, keep the batteries in the water for one hour or 30 minutes. Then you put the USB adapters inside the water and start charge.
Really? That sounded very fishy to me. So I asked an electrician friend of mine. He said, “No way. The voltage would be all wrong.” I called my dad, who’s a pretty savvy engineer. His response: “That sounds like bullshit.” So I decided to test it out for myself and make a video.
As you can see from the video, it very much didn’t work. After shooting I also tested the technique with salty water and with beefier 9V batteries. Nothing doing. I tested the water with a volt meter and the most power I could get was a very inconsistent 0.09 volts, which is nowhere near enough to charge a mobile phone.
So how to explain this? I have four theories:
1. They have radically different Duracells than we do.
2. He was making it up so the government wouldn’t bother shutting off the power.
3. He didn’t mention some crucial component to this trick.
4. I suck at electricity.
Any smart, electrician types out there have a better guess? [PBS via The Atlantic]
huu
Saturday, August 13, 2011 at 10:21 AMwhich one sound more believable? A potato to light up a light bulb or or 2 battery in water to charge up a phone? you pick the potato, why, because you some basic understanding of how battery works. Obviously this Oma Maquad and is caught out with a lie.
“This already exist everywhere” – yeah right fully charge. battery just grow out of the ground!
matt
Saturday, August 13, 2011 at 10:50 AMBeing an electrical engineer myself, my first thought was why the hell do you need the water? Battery cells are typically 1.5 v for that style of battery. 4 in series will give you 6 volts, that should do the trick. If you’ve got d cells I’d use them, otherwise you may need another set (or 10) batteries in parallel to give you the capacity to charge your phone. Right now I’m sitting on the toilet with my smart phone and cbf doing the calcs
Dain Bramage
Saturday, August 13, 2011 at 1:42 PM10 batteries.
Really?!
Explain this then
http://rocky.digikey.com/weblib/Energizer/Web%20Photos/CEL2MOT.jpg
Where is your god now?
LucasF
Saturday, August 13, 2011 at 5:15 PMThere is a thing called a step-up transformer inside that device to increase the voltage so that two 1.5 volt batteries output 6v instead of 3v. Something they probably don’t have access to. Hence you need more batteries instead.
Ben Zemm
Sunday, August 14, 2011 at 9:55 PMIt’s more correctly called a DC-to-DC converter since “transformer” implies AC. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC-to-DC_converter You can make one out of a 555 timer fairly easily.
Also, those are lithium batteries which have more power than the old carbon type.
Ben
Saturday, August 13, 2011 at 11:17 AMBeing a Structural Engineer myself, I have no positive input into the legitimacy of this claim. I shall wait until a structural question arises.
Francis M
Saturday, August 13, 2011 at 9:00 PMI’m guessing the person with the lack of knowledge required to come up with this “solution” wouldn’t know how to wire up the USB pin outs to make it charge through the cable
Doctor Doom
Saturday, August 13, 2011 at 11:41 AMBeing a Surgeon myself I too have no legitimate input into this claim. I will also wait until a question in my field of expertise arises.
Ben
Saturday, August 13, 2011 at 12:15 PMIs you field Medical or Doom related Dr?
John
Saturday, August 13, 2011 at 12:54 PMBeing a Lawyer myself, I have an opinion on batteries, structural engineering, surgery and anything else you care to mention. I certainly won’t wait until a question in my field of ‘expertise’ arises and simply say that this battery thing is bulls**t.
Ben Zemm
Sunday, August 14, 2011 at 9:57 PMIf you drink the water afterwards it will cure cancer, baldness and that annoying little thing on the back of your hand.
Dez
Saturday, August 13, 2011 at 2:08 PMBeing a Geologist myself, I have no positive input into the legitimacy of this claim. But I am going out to have waffles if anyone would like to come.
matt
Saturday, August 13, 2011 at 7:16 PMNothing to structural engineering… All you have to do is make everything equal to 0
Nate
Sunday, August 14, 2011 at 6:54 PMBeing a Mechatronics engineer myself, I too call shenanigans!
pinky
Sunday, August 14, 2011 at 6:59 PMBeing a musician I am interested in the tonal qualities of both the batteries and the glass of water while connected to a phone. This is an important issue and frankly I’m not sure why Giz does not create a separate article focusing on just this.
Duragizer
Sunday, August 14, 2011 at 7:05 PMBeing a battery myself, i have both positive and negative input in to the legitimacy of this claim. Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzrt!
Andrew
Monday, August 15, 2011 at 12:08 AMBeing a croupier myself. This doesn’t have anything to do with money, it is therefore worthless to me.
steve
Monday, August 15, 2011 at 5:55 AMBeing a mechanical engineer myself, I’m going to get coffee and wonder my tolerances. Tolerance to this garbage, that is.
olearymo
Monday, August 15, 2011 at 9:07 AMBeing late to the party on this little meme myself, I’m just gonna… just gonna go over here.
forever_alone.jpg
Azza
Monday, August 15, 2011 at 9:28 AMBeing a…a…hello? Can I come to your party?
Nathan
Monday, August 15, 2011 at 11:54 AMBeing a BS artist I can confirm this is a big furphy.
Lumnut
Monday, August 15, 2011 at 12:09 PMBeing a phone, Id prefer if you kept the water away from electrical equipment.
IEHOVAH
Monday, August 15, 2011 at 3:00 PMBeing your Lord and saviour myself, I would much prefer that any beneficial effects stemming from the use of batteries, cellphones or water be ascribed to me rather than to any kind of ‘scientific’ nonsense. Thank you.
Matt L
Monday, August 15, 2011 at 3:17 PMSo… Even if putting the batteries in this water caused the waters potential voltage to increase to 6v, you still need to apply the 6v to the voltage input line of the phone, and it still needs a 0v reference to complete the circuit, water is random and does not have a b+ line and a ground line going into the charger. Line.
Sean
Monday, August 15, 2011 at 6:24 PMbeing a NSW State Government Employee, I dont see why this wouldnt work
Franz
Monday, August 15, 2011 at 9:40 PMThere are other components obv
Naj
Tuesday, August 16, 2011 at 1:35 AMBeing an IT Tech, I would say must have been an iPhone
AeroNautic
Tuesday, August 16, 2011 at 11:49 PMBeing an Aircraft Engineer myself, water has a negative effect on the aerodynamics along the chord of the wing.
Adam
Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 10:16 AMThis comment feed went all weird..