Is it possible to power a laser by electric eel?

I got to thinking last night while talking to some friends! Is it possible to power a lab style laser with current from electric eels.. I know it sounds crazy but the things put out some crazy current so I am wondering if it was possible to harness that current and power the laser...

Maybe if you had a farm... and a proper way to sustain power. IIRC, the pulse is only a few milliseconds. Plus its the voltage that's high.

I think you could make it work with Hamsters or Gerbils, although you may need several generators to make it work. :crackup:

Alan

Now THAT sounds like a plan. ^

Idk why I am answering such a silly question but...

You'd need a large cap bank to serve as energy storage. The eel discharge is high voltage but low current, and several short pulses, not continuous. So after you're done "milking" the charge out of the eels into the cap bank, you'd power a buck converter with the cap bank.

I am no biologist so I am still wondering how this would be done. Witch end is positive and witch is negative? How to attach the wires?

I still think Hamsters & Gerbils are the way to go.

Alan

I know most of you think this is a nutz idea just one of those odd ideas so far out side of the box that most people are like Wth

Well you could be onto something. "You would make a ship sail against the winds and currents by lighting a bonfire under her deck? I have no time for such nonsense." Napoleon on Robert Fulton’s steamship.

Alan

Why don't we tie the eels together head to tail to form a giant rope of electric eels. They'll be pissed off so they'll start shocking the shit out of each other and fill up the cap bank faster....

Or we could do surgery on a shark and add a small laser with leads going to his brain. Add some of that mythological electrical wizardry you want people to come up with and his brain's electrical signals will FIRE HIS LAZOR and Dr. Evil will finally be happy. We may have to replace the sharks innards with some sort of wizbang dowhatsit thingymabopper though. You know, since the pulses from his brain will not be very powerful.

Or you know, we could just power our diodes with little batteries made from Lithium that output the correct assortment of electrical properties....I know, crazy!

Ha Ha yuck it up guys.. it was just a slightly nutty idea. i know that some car companies have looked at electric eels in a way to get more out of the hybrid cars.. The electric eel generates large electric currents by way of a highly specialized nervous system that has the capacity to synchronize the activity of disc-shaped, electricity-producing cells packed into a specialized electric organ. The nervous system does this through a command nucleus that decides when the electric organ will fire. When the command is given, a complex array of nerves makes sure that the thousands of cells activate at once, no matter how far they are from the command nucleus.

Each electrogenic cell carries a negative charge of a little less than 100 millivolts on its outside compared to its inside. When the command signal arrives, the nerve terminal releases a minute puff of acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter. This creates a transient path with low electrical resistance connecting the inside and the outside of one side of the cell. Thus, each cell behaves like a battery with the activated side carrying a negative charge and the opposite side a positive one.

Because the cells are oriented inside the electric organ like a series of batteries piled into a flashlight, the current generated by an activated cell "shocks" any inactive neighbor into action, setting off an avalanche of activation that runs its course in just two milliseconds or so. This practically simultaneous start-up creates a short-lived current flowing along the eel's body. If the eel lived in air, the current could be as high as one ampere, turning the creature's body into the equivalent of a 500-volt battery. But eels live in water, which provides additional outlets for the current. They thus generate a larger voltage, but a divided, and therefore diminished, current.

To my knowledge, there are no specific studies on why eels can shock other animals without shocking themselves but one possible explanation could be that the severity of an electric shock depends on the amount and duration of the current flowing through any given area of the body. For the purposes of comparison, an eel's body has roughly the same dimensions as an adult man's arm. To cause an arm to spasm, 200 milliamps of current must be flowing into it for 50 milliseconds. An eel generates much less energy than that because its current flows for only 2 milliseconds. Additionally, a large part of the current dissipates into the water through the skin. This probably reduces the current even more near internal structures like the central nervous system or heart.

Of course, the current received by any small prey is also only a small portion of the total current generated by the eel. Nevertheless, the current discharged into their smaller bodies is much larger proportionally. For example, a prey 10 times smaller in length than an eel is about 1,000 times smaller in volume. Therefore, the small animals close to the eel get shocked, rather than the discharging eel itself.. so if the power grid when down and you have to power a laser would you or would you not try to find a way to power your lasers

Wouldn't it be possible to have some kind of system which would "collect" the electricity produce by eels & then have it be stored in some chamber which could then be emptied and be used as a power source?

I know this may sound crazy but just throwing out ideas to an already great idea(by vortish).

-Alex

The best way to go about this is to fully immerse your hand into the eels holding tank and grab hold of it, the beams of light that will be emitted from your eyes will outshine any laser currently available and as an extra bonus you will get several sound effects!

Its OK Jeff we know you have been sick and are on some pretty heavy Drugs at the moment so we will excuse your Wacky ideas for the time being! However if you have any more such ides that may seem a little wacky to you (probably sound a Lot wacky to others ) I plead with you to get a second opinion from somebody who is NOT a current patient on medication. You may do yourself some more harm or to others around you!
Please, please get well soon Jeff!!!!! :crackup:

PS: No you cannot power your laser up with a Lightning Strike!

Tha Greenlander said:

Wouldn't it be possible to have some kind of system which would "collect" the electricity produce by eels & then have it be stored in some chamber which could then be emptied and be used as a power source?

I know this may sound crazy but just throwing out ideas to an already great idea(by vortish).

-Alex

Click to expand...

Hmm ever heard of a capacitor??? lol read Sigurthr's reply... :beer:

grainde said:

Hmm ever heard of a capacitor??? lol read Sigurthr's reply... :beer:

Click to expand...

Oh forgot about his post, thank you for reminding me! All in all it dosen't sound like it would be very efficient to power a laser

-Alex

Like busman says: maybe it's time for a second opinion? :crackup:
I hope your feeling better!