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Galvanic Cell

A zinc–copper battery. It's the steady electricity source: 1.1 V at 1 A, and it never runs out.

Crafting

A Zinc Ingot, a Paper and a Copper Ingot, side by side in one row.

Z P C

Using it

Place it touching Copper Cable or a machine. It supplies power straight away and never stops. There's no fuel, no GUI and no off switch. To turn it off, break it or cut the cable.

It's a weak source. One cell runs one Electromagnet, but not at full strength: the magnet is rated for 1.5 V, so on a cell's 1.1 V it pulls at about three-quarters strength. Hang a second magnet on the same cell and you're drawing twice its rating, so its voltage sags to a quarter and both magnets get much weaker.

The 1.1 V is the gap between zinc's and copper's electrode potentials (−0.76 V and 0.34 V). That figure matters for the Electrolytic Cell: it's just under the 1.2 V needed to plate zinc, so a cell refines pure copper out of brass.

Using several

Cells touching the same line pool together and share the load, so two cells feed two magnets about as well as one cell feeds one. They don't raise the voltage, though. Placing more cells won't make a single magnet any stronger than one cell can.

If a turning Electrostatic Generator is on the same line, its higher voltage overrules the cells for as long as the pulse lasts. Jade shows the cells as "Outbid by a higher voltage" during that time. That's normal.

Notes

  • The voltage comes from the two metals inside it. Only the zinc–copper cell exists right now.
  • Cells don't wear out or get used up yet. That may change.
  • Zinc doesn't generate in the world yet, so for now the cell is creative-only in practice.