Video - Emergency power for your cell phone

Hey, I just wanted to share this video I made. It shows how to charge your cell phone or other electronics using nothing but a potato, a penny, and a glavanized screw. Eighth grade science, sure, but I could see it coming in handy. Anyway, here is the video:

potato power

reply to post by CallMeMaury


Sweet, but you need to tell us more. Once can't see from the video what you did when you held the potato close to the charger. Did you hold them (the screw and penny) against the plug? Does one of them go to the big side and one to the small side of the plug? Could one use clips to bridge the distance, and is polarity an issue?



[edit on 18-6-2008 by Straight Razor]

My bad, it is in the video description. You just put the screw and penny in the potato about the width of the plug prongs and then you touch them to the prongs.

I watched the video, and was immediately struck by the fact that you were using a DC potato with a plug in AC charger. My knowledge of electronics says it shouldn't work. I tried to get my phone to charge using it's charger and a real battery, (AAA), and nothing happened. (I tried both polarities, even though it shouldn't matter to an AC charger)

I think it's a hoax. At best you're going to be stuck with a dead phone and a potato with a screw and a penny stuck in it. At worst you'll die of a zinc allergy you didn't know about when you eat the potato later.

what UTTER TWADDLE , really has the ` internut ` erroded your critical thinking so much ????????

the volatage and current " generated " by a potato are miniscule

your phone requires what voltage ?

my nokia is 5.7v charging input and the charger has a claimed output of 0.5amps max - though the phone probally uses < 1/4 of that

watch the vid again - there is a reason its done in the dark - can you guess what that reason is ?

Those style AC chargers use regulators instead of transformers to improve efficiency so technically it's possible to put very low voltage DC into them and get something back out. Stick a meter on the charger output and the voltage should be lower than the potato input. Looks like it's enough for the phone to sense something is happening, however it's not going to be enough to actually charge the battery. Run the phone on a single potato with no charger and the battery removed and I'll be impressed. However I don't doubt a dozen or so spuds in series would work well.

Yeah, I don't think it actually gives a charge, but the phone does go into charging mode for a little while. I don't know a lot about electronics. I was real excited when I made that video as it looked like the phone was charging. I have tried to see how much charge it can give a phone and there never appears to be an impact.

I'm guessing your phone went into 'charge mode' because you shorted out two electric pins with a soggy potato
Possible a tad of residual current left in adaptor.

Try the same experiment again..but this time in a sinkful of water and get back to us with the results.

If you are going to do it, do it the right way.
These are my 2 favorites. I figure that If I am away from home and need to charge, chances are I will have my laptop with me. If not, the solar one will do the trick just fine.

charge your cell with USB cable
A solar charger for your cell

reply to post by AGENT_T


or because its a hoax - and the idiot had a SECOND charger lead hidden in the shadows under his arm running to an A/C outlet

I don't think you're supposed to all other users names. Either way, I didn't fake it. If you read the thread you see it doesn't really work, it just makes the phone go into charging mode, but it doesn't actually charge.

Wow, so rude.