you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 7 points 5 months ago (11 children)

I know how electricity works, but without any technology more advanced than flint tools I'm gonna just have to go with "magic."

  • source
  • hideshow 11 child comments
  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago (10 children)

    You go fire - > kiln - > charcoal - > furnace - > steel and copper - > permanent magnets - > electric motor.

    The tricky thing is that you need a naturally occurring magnet (lodestone) to make the first steel magnet. If you happen to have a magnet on you you can do heat treatment of the steel, rub the magnet to align the atoms and get yourself a better magnet.

    After you got the electric motor you both have a generator and a motor easy peasy.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 10 child comments
  • [–] 9 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    I died of simple infection while building the kiln. No antibiotics.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    You can use chemical batteries to create electric current without magnets.

    You can also create weak permanent magnets by just hitting iron with a hammer.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago

    Looked it up, this looks the easiest to tech up. You still have to heat it up to a dark red color, align it north to south and then hammer. It uses the earth's magnetic field to magnetise.

    Then tech up to stronger steel magnets.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    The wire part of that isn't trivial. They were pulling wires in the middle ages for holding armor together, but high volume and specialization didn't come until the Renaissance. Good insulation pretty much requires plastics. Wax could be used before that but it's not as good. Your early motors will have shorts that reduce power or kill it entirely.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago

    Well yeah, definitely not practical to do it with zero tech, a water wheel is better in most cases. Even a bike with gears for an unmovable drill is nice.

    But the electric motor can tech up some interesting chemistry later on.

  • source
  • parent