Forever Flasher (& flashlight)

Three actually ;-)

Come to think of it, I don't think Ian made the cut..?

Tim

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Reply to
Tim Williams
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That's me, and Rich Grise. If you don't shape up, you're gonna have to ship out! :-)

See below.

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PUNCTUATION - Apostrophe
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Reply to
Lizard Blizzard

The solar engine illustrates the use of sub-microamp techniques. You could use it to drive a step-up inductor in place of the motor, or to gate the V-boost circuit. Feed the solar engine from a small solar pannel coupled to a tritium light source using clear silicone. (120uH is correct)

s
Reply to
Stepan Novotill

In article , snipped-for-privacy@outerspace.org mentioned...

Yeah! That's the one! I remember seeing that quite a while ago, but I didn't have the URL bookmarked.

This is what I'm trying to make. I didn't realize that he used only a .1 F capacitor. I was going to use a whole farad, maybe more. The 1F

5V supercaps are $2.79 at Mouser, which is more than a dollar cheaper than Digi-Key. I could use a couple in parallel.

I'm not sure why the guy used and inductror in his Infini-Flasher. I didn't, and my flasher works just fine, and only draws 100 uA average.

My guesstimate is that it will run for a couple hours per charge. But that assumes no leakage in the 1F capacitor. But I don't know if that's true. From what I find about regular electrolytics, large ones in the 100,000 uF range have several milliamps leakage, so that would be much greater than the flasher current, and so, might reduce the running time greatly. Knowing this leakage would help me plan on how many caps to order and use. Saves my time, too, since I wouldn't have to cut and try over a period of days to find out.

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Reply to
Watson A.Name - 'Watt Sun'

Reply to
Stepan Novotill

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

But how long do you have to wait between motor operations? At that rate, it might take a lifetime to move the robot across the room!

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Reply to
Watson A.Name - 'Watt Sun'

WAIT TIME IS DERERMINED BY THE SIZE OF THE CHARGE COLLECTION CAPACITOR. fOR led APPLICATION THE CAPACITOR WOULD BE SMALL. SINCE WE DON'T WANT TO DELIVER TOO MUCH POWER TO THE LED.

Reply to
Stepan Novotill

Apparently a crystal radio receiver with a very long antenna can supply enough power to run transistor circuits and therefore an LED using a boost circuit. See:

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Stepan

Reply to
Stepan Novotill

I used to live near an AM radio station. A long wire, an LED, and a ground was all that was needed.

People who live under high tension power lines could probably drive several LEDs from two sheets of aluminum foil on their roof :)

Reply to
Kevin McMurtrie

How about during a lightning storm? Warren

Reply to
warren weber

Wow, now that's pretty bizarre. Tin foil caps for a house. :-P

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Reply to
Lizard Blizzard

A neon bulb between the spokes of an umbrella and the main shaft works well too, when you are walking under power lines.

Stepan

Reply to
Stepan Novotill

Earlier, I was coming back from lunch at work, and right next door is a local radio station with two large transmission towers. Lightning was flashing through the sky, and twice I heard the telltale crackling of electrostatic ionization... I think the charge must have been jumping across the insulators used on the guy-wires holding up the towers. First time I heard it, I shrugged it off. Isn't those things grounded? Second time, I knew it was coming from the towers.

Brazzzap-crackle-crackle... :)

Reply to
Mark Jones

Certainly. A power company in northern Arizona sued some indians who ran an insulated fence along the ground under some high tension transmission lines. They powered lights from the fence for free Ghost.

Reply to
Ghost Chip

Some nice tritium light sources that could be coupled to a solar cell using optical gel.

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A thesis on the conversion of mechanical vibration to electricity. I suppose this means that the old "sound powered" naval microphones would work if a step-up transformer is used. Here the thesis:

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750 millivolt thermopiles, (and 30 millivolt thermocouples) out of old gas furnaces. A thermopile contains multiple thermocouples. Could feed a Germanium transistor stepup forward converter. For example see:
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You can use a peltier junction array out of a 12volt electric camping cooler. These seem to have a higher output than most thermocouples: See this link for an example product that uses a peltier junction:

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Reply to
Stepan Novotill

In article , snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com mentioned... [snip]

From what I've read, the thermocouples require a difference in heat to work. You have to have one end cooled by a heatsink. So part of the problem is to connect a couple of them in series to get a higher voltage, but still insulate them so they don't short.

And then there's the problem of getting a hot enough source of heat to give the needed voltage. I was checking for efficiency and found this. I assume that this efficiency is more than a standard thermocouple found in commercial appliances.

RTG Module Fuel mass 250WT Voltage 28V Power 20.5W Mass 2.2kg Specific power 9.4W/kg Thermocouple type Silicon-Germanium Thermocouple efficiency 7.6% Number of thermocouples 8 Fuel pile PuO2/Iridium/Graphite

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Reply to
Watson A.Name - "Watt Sun

I remember Lucas in the UK developing a thermopile system for car battery charging where the thermopile fitted round the car exhaust, they never produced it because a significant market was alternators / dynamoes and the business case didn't add up. Probably wouldn't work now becasue of the need for a hot exhaust with catalytic converters.

Reply to
Mjolinor

Silicon-Germanium? Thats a Peltier device more than a thermocouple:

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------------------------ Narrow band-gap semiconductors are generally used for cooling and for power-generation applications.(9) Most Peltier coolers are made with alloys of bismuth telluride (Bi2Te3), antimony telluride (Sb2Te3), and/or bismuth selenide (Bi2Se3), the best materials to date for near-room-temperature operation. At higher temperatures, lead telluride (PbTe) is used. For power generation systems, which typically operate at still higher temperatures, silicon-germanium (Si-Ge) alloys are often used.

Reply to
Stepan Novotill

Real tree-hugger bait that, not to mention a bit difficult to get :-)

Try asking for PuO2 and the force *will* be with you!

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Reply to
Fred Abse

In message , Mjolinor writes

I would have thought it would work post cat.

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Clint
Reply to
Clint Sharp

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