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powering an LED with a lithium 3 volt battery

I am very new to electronics and was wondering if anyone could help with the problem I am trying to solve. I want to make a device that will function as follows. I want to use a photon detector connected to an amplifier, which will be connected to a 3 volt lithium battery, this battery will then in turn power an LED. When the photon detector recieves a signal ( ie the light hits it) it will produce a current, which in turn will be amplified to give enough power to engage a battery to be made active. The battery will then power an LED. In all of this design, I want to keep it as small as possible and as thin as possible. The electronics will be hidden away and only the LED will be exposed to be seen in the design. I really need help in hooking all of these things up.

The detector will be something like a silicon photodiode, which will provide current to the amplifier which will be amplified and then I am assuming charge the battery so that it will then turn on the LED. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

Remember I am very new to electronics and any pictures, images, drawings would be wonderful.

Thank you

Jeremy Karr

Reply to
JJKarr
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schrieb im Newsbeitrag news: snipped-for-privacy@m7g2000cwm.googlegroups.com...

Hi Jeremy,

if I understand you correctly, you want to charge a battery using a photodiode. This won't work well because the power output from photodiodes is very low. Even if you connect an amplifier to your diode you will have to power the amplifier from somewhere (amplifiers unfortunately can't generate power out of nothing). It depends what you really want to achieve. If you want to generate electric power from light and store it, use a small solar cell, a charge regulator circuit and an accumulator. If you want to activate an LED when a light turns on, you'll need a power source (charged battery or line power) and an electronic trigger. Though I must say that I don't quite get the idea behind it - turn on a light to indicate that a light has been turned on??? A small hole might do the same trick.

Regards, Leo

Reply to
Leo Meyer

Jeremy, This is what I think you want:

  • battery---------+LED - --------Collector of NPN transistor

  • battery---------+Photodiode- -----------1K Resistor--------Base if NPN transisstor

- battery---------------------------------------------------Emitter of NPN transistor

You will not be charging the 3 volt lithium battery, The NPN transistor will be the amplifier.

Dave

Reply to
CheapscateDave

On 4 Oct 2006 20:08:34 -0700, in message , snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com scribed:

Somebody posted a link to a schematic of this very thing not long ago, within the past two weeks. A daunting task, but searching the group could turn it up. Hang on, this should be easy, I posted a reply here it is:

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Reply to
Alan B

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