Thermocouples

Recently, I learned about thermocouples, two pieces of wire connected together, which creates electricity when heated. It's not much electricity, but thermocouples can be combined together to make a good bit of electricity with very little materials.

• Here's the free electricity book that I learned it from
• And here's the bit about thermocouples
• More info

I got so excited about it that I thought I'd build my own thermocouple, but I wanted to find the wire cheaply. After a lot of hunting, I think I found the best place to get the wire cheaply. For anyone else out there looking for it, I'll save you some trouble:

http://www.omega.com/ppt/pptsc.asp?ref=SPIR&nav=temh02

You can get Alumel (Alomega)/Chromel (Chromega) here pretty cheaply. Another good pairing is Iron/Constantan, which is roughly the same price.

Further, the larger the spool you buy, the less expensive it gets by the foot.

Now go out there and innovate!