A Battery In A Magnetic Field

D> Nothing of any significance at the level of "zoom" you're talking.

Oh I know.... any effect would be completely negligible, particularly for this application. The clumping and aligning is what i was visualizing, but i'm sure that the electrons would get pulled out of this arrangement just the same when I threw the switch and turned the circuit on.

I thought it was an interesting question :-)

Lord Garth sez:

Of course! My mention of that above was completely tongue-in-cheek :-) Sorry if i seemed as if i were miffed about it, as that's not the case... I'm typically easy-going and am quick to enjoy jokes/puns/humour, etc... (after all, i was talking about eating capacitors and soldering antidepressants).. It's cool man.. ;-)

I've heard this one from a lot of people, but in each case i've asked why that would happen. Nobody could explain it, they were just repeating what they had heard. Sure enough, at the service station i worked at several years ago there was a set of wooden "battery charging trays" for keeping the batteries off the concrete shop floor while charging or storing. When we had more than 4 batteries the shop manager would set the batteries on metal coat hangers, as if the whole

I always thought this was B.S. but I've never had an otherwise healthy car battery and properly calibrated concrete surface that i could spare for a day or so to try it out. I could be wrong....

Huh? What? I just got here! ;-)

I was going to say, since the case of the battery is clearly steel, the magnetic field doesn't even get through it into the battery's guts anyway.

Cheers! Rich

Don't sweat it!

Nothing of any significance at the level of "zoom" you're talking. "Zoomed in" to the point where chemical reactions "become visible", it's at least *possible*, even if not particularly *likely*, that the magnetic field would tend to cause some sort of "clumping", or perhaps "aligning" of the ingredients in the battery due to possible differing amounts of susceptibility to magnetic influences, but I wouldn't expect to see such a thing (assuming it happens at all) causing any observable effect in the overall "batteries make volts" view.

Interesting question, even though it would seem to me that the answer would be of little or no actual importance under real-world conditions. Perhaps in a lab environment such as "trying to build molecules an atom at a time" such a consideration would be crucial, but for your purposes, any effect it has would most likely be so small that it probably can't even be detected, let alone measured.

"Clumping" could be prevented by periodically rotating the batt, if "clumping" existed in appreciable amounts. That *was* a good question, though. My mother told me that a magnet would kill a battery. Not sure where she got that uninformed bs, but it's conceivable that others have heard the same, so it's good to dispel such myths.

Smoking Si--> burning silicon based electronic components but that was from another day when (you) we were joking with the OP of that thread. I though most would understand the slightly obscure jest. But then I though that was directed to Rich as it followed on of his replies.

To the OP of this thread, "Don't sweat it" means that it is okay to let the battery hang from the speaker magnet. I've done that myself and it cause no problems.

It is an interesting question reminescent of the arguments regarding storage of a car battery on a concrete surface and their apparent rapid discharge having done so.

Lighten up!

Hey, I've heard that's good s*it, man! Lemme know if you find enough to spare so I can try some! :)

Yep, that's pretty much what I'd expect, too.

Indeed. Now one needs to figure out if it's a question that has an answer with any meaning! :)

Oh man!!! Its got some epoxy and phenolic mixed in, Wait!!! I have a 4" wafer of the pure stuff....monolithic, polished smooth. It'll cost you though!!!! 1,0,0 crystal alignment so it snaps straight!!!

Ha! Hangers huh? Lets send him to electricity 101! Maybe the deal with car batteries revolves around the cold soaking effect of sitting on a slab. Then again, it could be the acid etching the concrete that was the real reason this myth got started.

I took the battery from my neighbors car and her to a shop so as to test the battery and to get a replacement with the exchange. I discovered that her old battery had leaked on my carpeting in the hatchback area. The color was okay but the plastic fibers had reacted and were clumped as if they were glued. I never did figure that out but now I have a liner that things like batteries would be placed upon.

Ooooooooooohhhhhh! Uncut! Wow! All I've ever seen was the stuff that was already stepped on two or three times before it got to me. Yours has got to be some seriously quality stuff, man!

How much ya want for just a taste?

to

cost

It's like the Shroud of Turin, a priceless relic! You can look and drool but you can' touch.

though

Your late man, you gonna have to remember from yesterday! I though you were strangely quiet. We're just screwing around.

Snip

snip

My understanding is that the idea goes back to the era when batteries had wooden cases. The concrete surface would draw moisture to the batteries. Since lead acid batteries are wet inside anyway they must of been lined someway. ON the otherhand it most likely has always been BS.

Awww, c'mon, man! I'm jonesin' somethin' awful here!

I lurk quite a bit here, and just had to thank all you guys for a very amusing thread. I caught myself chuckling a few times.

Oh, and by the way, I soldered some paxil and ate some monolithic capacitors, and now I'm not feeling so happy..... :S

-- Bullwinkle Jones

The old batteries were lined with an asphaltic/tar coating. The wood still had moisture/electrolyte soaked into it and was partially conductive. When set on the ground there was enough conductivity to allow the battery to discharge over time. With a modern battery that's clean that wouldn't be a problem at all, witness the metal racks that batteries are commonly stored on at battery stores.

That's what I remember reading at one time, anyway...

JazzMan

enough

was

got

drool

Bwaaahahaha!!!

Ha! Wait until nature calls!!!!