Unusual usage (hours) counter with mercury capillary----make money online

This is a usage counter that works by moving mercury in a capillary tube via electrochemistry.  As electricity flows through the device, mercury atoms are transferred across an electrolyte gap in the capillary. The position of the gap

changes as mercury is transferred, and shows how much total charge has been passed through the device.

I realize that the divider network looks more like 20:1.  This might kill my theory that the mercury ions are in the 2+ state.  I'm really not sure.

hey everyone here's an interesting bit

of electronics history this is a usage

counter so it tells you how many hours a

piece of equipment has been used it just

has two terminals on the back and these

are just mounting lugs here these don't

electrically connect to anything and

when we put 12.6 volts on the terminals

this thing starts counting the number of

hours what's interesting is that it has

no mechanical parts really and it's also

completely passive and the way it works

is it has this thin glass tube that has

mercury in it but notice there's a

little gap right here and this is where

you read the meter so this is times 100

and this is the Russian word for hour so

500 hours the full scale is 2500 hours

and the way this works is when we put

electricity on here the mercury from

this side of the column is actually

transferred through that gap which is

filled with electrolyte to this other

side so the gap actually creeps along as

we put power through this thing and

that's what saves the timer that's what

how you can read off the time in some

sense it's not tamper proof at all

because all we have to do is switch the

polarity of the power and the gaff will

start moving back the other way however

if we run it long enough where the gap

goes off the end of the column then it's

done you can't ever reset it because the

gap is missing and there's nothing to do

this transfer anymore this draws about

60 micro amps at the rated 12 point 6

volts and I made a little time-lapse

just showing what this thing looks like

under a microscope so they have a chance

of actually seeing the gap move the

time-lapse spans about 8 hours today

that I was running it at a slightly

higher voltage to try to get some more

speed out of it technically this device

is called a kilometer because what it's

actually measuring is the amount of

total charge that we've put through it

the number of mercury atoms that are

transferred across that gap is directly

proportional to the number of electrons

now the amount of the total charge that

we put through this device so if we run

it at a higher voltage it will very

happily move the gap along at a higher

rate because it's just

measuring the the total charge and

higher voltage means more current more

electrons and more atoms being moved

when I first started to do the numbers I

realized that there must be a current

divider inside this thing and so I

cracked it open and sure enough there is

a resistor network that looks like this

and it gives us about a 10 to one

current divider so that the actual

number of electrons flowing through the

tube the mercury capillary is about

one-tenth the number flowing through the

main circuit I wanted to see if I could

figure out how fast the counters should

run based on the actual physics involved

and it actually turned out fairly close

so I measured the capillary diameter at

about 0.35 millimeters and then

calculated the area and the molecular

weight of mercury is about 200 grams and

then with the density we can figure out

that one mole of mercury is about almost

15,000 cubic millimeters and then if we

dub divided by the area of that

capillary we can figure out that one

mole of mercury atoms is about 1.5 times

10 to the 5 linear millimeters on that

scale per mole the reason we want to

know this in terms of moles are a number

of mer of mercury atoms is because the

actual electroplating or electro

transfer electrochemistry really that's

happening in there is dependent on the

number of electrons and in this case I'm

guessing that the mercury is in a two

plus charge state inside there I don't

know what the electrolyte is but it's

some kind of probably aqueous solution

and so when the mercury comes off it'll

be in two plus so we actually need two

electrons to get one mercury ion across

that gap and then we have six point two

times 10 to the 18 electrons per Coulomb

and 6.02 times 10 to the 23 items per

mole so then we end up with this amount

of moles per coulombs we basically

figured out how much electricity it's

going to take to move a mole of stuff

and we also know how much linear space a

mole is going to take up

that capillary so then if we multiply

those two numbers together we get about

3/4 of a millimeter per Coulomb so

that's pretty convenient so if we had 1

amp for one second that would be 1

Coulomb and we should get 0.77

millimeters of travel so as it happens

500 hours on this scale is exactly 8

millimeters and so I did 8 divided by

that rate that we just came up with and

came up with ten point three coulombs

but that's ten point three coulombs

through the capillary if we use that ten

to one current divider that's actually a

hundred and one coulombs of total charge

and this thing is drawing about 62 micro

amps so if we calculate it all out we

get four hundred and fifty three hours

calculated when it really should be five

hundred so I think that's probably

within the margin of error here I think

probably the biggest iffy measurement is

the capillary diameter and also the

resistance of that gap through the

electrolyte I just have to took a guess

at that okay I hope you found that

interesting see you next time byeTop Paid Keyword :  earn cash online, google make money from home, earn money online without investment by clicking ads, free earn money website, online money making jobs, earn money online without investment by typing, online work for money, best online earning sites, make money online with google, online earning websites, money making websites, online earning websites for students, invest online and earn money, best online money making, online money income, view ads and earn money without investment, earn money online by clicking, online money income site, money earning sites, online earning sites, best website to earn money, free money earning sites, money earning websites, get money online, online earning tips, online earning without investment,