Hand crank powered leds

[PEU]

Look

any comments welcome!


Pablo

 

[Lynx_Arc]

I was playing with the capacitor drive LED circuit and found the same thing... runs about 10-30 seconds and not much more.
one thing you could do that may help is wire the LEDs in series and design the regulator to work at the higher voltage instead, that would reduce losses if your ciruit is really running 50 volts into the capacitor.

I have thought of using a rechargeable lithium battery myself because a capacitor even fully charged wont drive an LED for long while you could charge up the lithium battery more and more over time and if let sit it wouldn't lose much compared to nimh over months, I even thought about a circuit to slowly drain other batteries filling up a lithium while completely zapping them dry, then I could toss the other cells quicker than trying to drain them using LEDs.

Now if you can just connect that up to a squirrel cage and get a hamster.... you can have alternative powereed lighting... the green freaks would love you and PETA would send you a letter.. lol

 

[PEU]

I was thinking of using an old disk drive stepper motor

 

[Lynx_Arc]

I have an old wonder woman hand grip generator light that uses an odd bulb.. probably something like 2v at .15amp or thereabouts. I had it working awhile back but it is cheap and keeps falling apart. I was going to convert it to LED use but it may end up in the trash next time I play with it.

 

[WildRice]

I have a copy of the English publication circuit to use a HD stepper motor. It can be done, but the pulses are really short, and it takes ALOT to charge anything. a 1:10 gear box between the crank and the stepper would make a HUGE inprovement. To build one for practical use, I would say no, to build one just to do it, SURE, youll learn alot about regulation and charging characteristics.

Jeff

 

[cobb]

Lowes has a crank up led flashlight in their led section by the tools up front near the exit foor.