help plz!

[haloguy229]

Im doing my project and how does one fold a AA battery?

[deleted-71447]

Hi haloguy229,
Welcome to the Ask an Expert forums. That's an interesting question, but I'm not sure what it means. Can you give us more background on your project? What is the general topic? Do you have a hypothesis? What do you mean by "fold" a battery and why do you need to know this?
Thanks. Looking forward to hearing more,
Chris

[amyC]

Hi Haloguy229 - I know Chris has asked for clarification on what you are wanting to do in terms of "folding" a battery.

I hope you'll follow up and let us know more concretely what you are trying to do and where you are running into trouble. But I wanted to post the link here to the project I think you might be doing. Is it Veggie Power? (https://www.sciencebuddies.org/mentorin ... p029.shtml )

Amy
Science Buddies

[haloguy229]

Well my project is about finding which is the better conducter a lemon or potato.
My hypothesis is that it is the lemon because it contains more acidity.
I looked on wikihow and im basing it off that.
heres the link:http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Light-out-of--Batteries
thx for your help

[deleted-71712]

Hi haloguy,

Like Chris, I also don't know what you mean by "folding" a battery. Is it possible that there's a typo in your instructions?

We have a similar project idea (which doesn't contain the word "fold"), so that might be a good resource for you if it's not what you're using already:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p018.shtml

I also found an old thread with another question about this project, in case that addresses any questions you have:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... =31&t=3626

Hope that helps, and do post again with more info if you don't understand, or if you have questions further down the line!

Amanda

[haloguy229]

Amanda thx for the project i just have 1 question,
can i exchange the 6v battery for a 9v battery?

[deleted-71712]

OK, I took a look at the wikihow instructions you linked to. I think the problem you're running into is that there's not a lot of quality control regarding what gets posted there -- those instructions are confusing to me as well. However, this is the basic principle involved: To make a battery light a lightbulb, you need to provide a path for electrons to travel from one end of the battery to the other (outside the battery), and on the way they need to go through the lightbulb. This path needs to be conductive, so a wire is a good choice.

As for the voltage of the battery: the project specifies a 6-V lightbulb. If you connect it to a battery of higher voltage, there's a decent chance that it will burn out quickly, overheat, etc. If the light bulb is rated for a higher voltage than the battery provides, it shouldn't be damaged, but it might not glow very brightly. This is related to the idea of testing conductivity of materials by adding them to the circuit -- the extra circuit elemental (in series with the lightbulb) provides resistance, and some of the voltage drop in the circuit occurs across the extra element instead of the lightbulb. If it's a large enough resistance, it could also affect the current through the circuit, because batteries aren't reeeeaaaally ideal voltage sources. This might not all make sense right now, but it's something to keep in mind as you research the background vocabulary and try to understand the experiment. Have fun!

Amanda

[deleted-71588]

If you are trying to test/compare the condutivity of of a lemon and a potatoe, then using a Digital Multi-meter would be an appropriate piece of test equipment used on the ohms scale. For this, you would need to use two identical metal electrodes (same material, size, and shape) placed the same distance apart and in the same orientation with respect to the axis between them.

If you are trying to determine/compare the electrolyte capabilities of the lemon and potatoe, they using a Digital Multi-meter on the lowest DC voltage scale and some resistors as a load would be an appropriate pieces of test equipment. For this, you would need to use two different metal electrode materials (annodes need to be the same size and shape, cathodes need to be the same size and shape; however, the annode and cathodes can differ from each other) placed the same distance apart and in the same orientation with respect to the axis between them. You need construct a "load curve" that shows the voltage for open circuit (no load resistor) and for various load resistances in order to compare the electrolyte capabilities. In order to sufficiently characterize the batery capability, your load resistor choices should be such that your plot goes at least from an open circuit voltage to a load resistance where the voltage is less than or equal to half of the open circuit voltage. Because the lemon and potatoe are likely to have different open circuit voltages, this means you will have to test with the wider of the two required ranges of load resistors.

Trying to characterize the electrical properties of the lemon and potatoe using a tungsten filament light bulb is not going to provide you an accurate measurement. Even if you could accurately judge the intensity of the light, the light bulb operating conditions would probably be different so you would just get one point of information which isn't enough to accurately characterize the capabilities.

You need to do a little reading on conductivity, ohms law, and measuring impedance (or internal resistance) of batteries.