Flatter Spoke Mounted LED Coil & Other Questions

I got the 120 v coil from a 6 v power supply (50 cents at used stuff store) and a welding magnet (99 cents at Harbor Freight) and taped the coil and a bi color LED to the spokes and the magnet to the seat stays. It was very dim but encouraging. I bought a bridge rectifier (99 cents) and used the 1 m F capacitor from the power supply and broke the magnet and taped half to the chain stay half to the seat stay. This was a great improvement. The capacitor actually keeps the LED on for the entire rotation at speeds above 5 mph.

Three questions:

Is there any flatter more efficient coil off the shelf? I would prefer something in tape form like the wiring to a jet printer head. If not, how could a flatter coil be fabricated for this application? It doesn't have to be pretty, just cheap and not fall apart in the rain.

Reinserting the magnetic coupling plates into the coil not only added a lot of weight, it didn't seem to brighten the light any. I'm glad I don't need the heavy inserts but I was curious why they didn't help.
Why was the bi color LED in the first unrectified experiment going from green to red to green? Shouldn't it just be R to G or G to R?

Bret Cahill

In article , snipped-for-privacy@aol.com mentioned...

Guys in alt.solar.photovoltaic NG have pointed to articles for DIY wind turbines. I think one good online source of info is Home Power magazine. One guy uses a high strength magnet on the rotor and then makes his own coils, which are pancake flat. He goes out in the sand with the magnet and collects iron powder, enough to fill a pie tin, I'd guess. He mixes it with a binder, might be epoxy, and forms it around the coils to concentrate the magnetic field. Some of these can put out 12V at several amps, good enough to charge a car battery. He uses a lotta wood, so it might not be good for a wet or rainy environment. Another generator uses a brake rotor. Check out the articles in back issues.

formatting link

Here's another good site for a homemade generator.

formatting link

-- @@F@r@o@m@@O@r@a@n@g@e@@C@o@u@n@t@y@,@@C@a@l@,@@w@h@e@r@e@@ ###Got a Question about ELECTRONICS? Check HERE First:### http://users.pandora.be/educypedia/electronics/databank.htm My email address is whitelisted. *All* email sent to it goes directly to the trash unless you add NOSPAM in the Subject: line with other stuff. alondra101 hotmail.com Don't be ripped off by the big book dealers. Go to the URL that will give you a choice and save you money(up to half). http://www.everybookstore.com You'll be glad you did! Just when you thought you had all this figured out, the gov't changed it: http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html@@t@h@e@@a@f@f@l@u@e@n@t@@m@e@e@t@@t@h@e@@E@f@f@l@u@e@n@t@@