Charge Your Cellphone Using Wasted Heat (and Build a Steampunk Wall-E)

Step 21 Assembling the microcontroller (optional)

This part is kind of difficult without some experience with microcontrollers. You can skip it and wire the peltier directly to the motors and the device will work.

If you are daring enough to consider programming it here are some useful references. We seriously recommend prototyping the system on a breadboard before you solder it. Different peltiers generate different voltages.
We used the Pic kit 2 and programmed it in the development board then pulled the PIC out and placed it into the WALL-E.

We won't be going into the details because its big enough to be an instructable of its own. In fact it is! You can search instructables.com for how to program PIC micros.


Our WALL-E PCB has two 2n3904 transistors that drive the two motors. We have 100 Ohms resistors connected to the base of each transistors. Two output pins of the PIC turn the transistors on and off. This allows wall E to spin or go forward. To get WALL-E to drive backwards would require a full H-bridge.

Comments

[Insidio]

Hi friends, I think I need some help. There's gonna be some cience fair in my school and I'm going to make this Wall-E for the fair. But the problem is that I don't have any legos and those wheels and lego motors. I bought some 9 volt motors, the Peltier units, and almost everything except for the pic.
So my questions are: Can I make a Wall-E with those motors or maybe using some wheels from a remote control car?Actually I have some old Tyco RC Air Rebound, I know I have to change some things in the design, there's no problem with that. And can I use a PIC16F84 instead of the Pic Kit2?
If I can use the electric car wheels and the PIC16F84 please give me some idea of how can I do it. If I can't I think I'll have to buy the Pic Kit2.
Thanks for your attention: Hugo