Construction
I'm by no means an author, I don't write very coherently and I'm certainly not going to make a big effort for this blog to have fantastic entertainment factor... so with that in mind, here's how we built the cell...
I bought www.joecell.co.uk few weeks back and just chucked a forum on it. I 'm not looking to monopolise the readership in the UK, I just wanted to feel like I was helping out. Anyway, one fella on the board got in contact with me from Holland and said there was a "Joe Cell" convention in his country. Nice idea, even tho no-ones reached the holy-grail of getting a car engine to run 100% off the cell, it's a nice idea to gather lots of people in one place and discuss ideas. One good thing that did come out of the meeting though was a consensus to all chip in together to purchase some stainless steel for people to manufacture their cells.
The steel itself was 316L, which if you don't know is a type of steel that is very low in carbon and magnetism (apparently magnetism affects the cell in a negative way). So a few weeks later and my pocked a few €'s lighter I had my 4 rings of stainless steel.
My next problem came from what to put the rings in. Now I bought a large glass vase from our local Asda (nothing by the finest for my cell, eh?) but whilst storing the metal rings in the glass, it decided to one day explode the glass. It wasnt attached to anything, wasn't hot, but it still managed to cut what looking like a very well manufactured edge through the glass and dump it on the floor. So back to the drawing board.
The following weekend I was in Belgium visiting the in-laws, when I noticed that my father-in-law (great bloke btw) had a hoard of huge jam jar type things with sealable lids. I phone my dad up in England to get the outside diameter measurement, and it appeared that the rings were going to fit fine! (which in actual fact they did!)
So what's left? Well we then needed a way of seperating out the cells. After a few false starts and a bit of money wasted on ebay, we settled for chemical stoppers, those big orange/red rubber things you get on the top of demijohns. My dad has a grinder, so we decided with the aid of a fine bladed hacksaw to cut roughly the right shape and then use the grinder for final precision, and let me tell you, if you don't have a good grip on a little piece of rubber and you show it to a grinder... well... you can..... PING...... kiss that piece of rubber goodbye!
After a lot of frustration, my dad managed to manufacture the rubber pieces, and we gave the cylinders a final polish and pieced it all together (not forgetting to wedge a couple of cables in for the anode and cathode).
And there we go, our first Joe Cell, ain't she a darlin'?
I bought www.joecell.co.uk few weeks back and just chucked a forum on it. I 'm not looking to monopolise the readership in the UK, I just wanted to feel like I was helping out. Anyway, one fella on the board got in contact with me from Holland and said there was a "Joe Cell" convention in his country. Nice idea, even tho no-ones reached the holy-grail of getting a car engine to run 100% off the cell, it's a nice idea to gather lots of people in one place and discuss ideas. One good thing that did come out of the meeting though was a consensus to all chip in together to purchase some stainless steel for people to manufacture their cells.
The steel itself was 316L, which if you don't know is a type of steel that is very low in carbon and magnetism (apparently magnetism affects the cell in a negative way). So a few weeks later and my pocked a few €'s lighter I had my 4 rings of stainless steel.
My next problem came from what to put the rings in. Now I bought a large glass vase from our local Asda (nothing by the finest for my cell, eh?) but whilst storing the metal rings in the glass, it decided to one day explode the glass. It wasnt attached to anything, wasn't hot, but it still managed to cut what looking like a very well manufactured edge through the glass and dump it on the floor. So back to the drawing board.
The following weekend I was in Belgium visiting the in-laws, when I noticed that my father-in-law (great bloke btw) had a hoard of huge jam jar type things with sealable lids. I phone my dad up in England to get the outside diameter measurement, and it appeared that the rings were going to fit fine! (which in actual fact they did!)
So what's left? Well we then needed a way of seperating out the cells. After a few false starts and a bit of money wasted on ebay, we settled for chemical stoppers, those big orange/red rubber things you get on the top of demijohns. My dad has a grinder, so we decided with the aid of a fine bladed hacksaw to cut roughly the right shape and then use the grinder for final precision, and let me tell you, if you don't have a good grip on a little piece of rubber and you show it to a grinder... well... you can..... PING...... kiss that piece of rubber goodbye!
After a lot of frustration, my dad managed to manufacture the rubber pieces, and we gave the cylinders a final polish and pieced it all together (not forgetting to wedge a couple of cables in for the anode and cathode).
And there we go, our first Joe Cell, ain't she a darlin'?
posted by Baj @ 9:05 AM
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