Cheap Easy Solar Powered Robot

Step 2 Prototype It

To make you robot correctly you'll have to use appropriate components. Depending on the motor you use, the optimal component values will differ, so you should buy a range of values for each component.

After getting a nice assortment of component values make a little prototyping circuit so you can easily swap in and out different part values. You can do this on a breadboard but I made a permanent circuit to test future robots.

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#######--things to vary--##############
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You can use different versions of the 1381 part so that it will wait for different voltages before triggering (and sending power to the motor). Get one that will trigger at a voltage appropriate for you motor and which your solar panel can handle (your solar panel should be able to supply more than the voltage it triggers at)

Also, varying the either of the capacitors and the resistor will alter how much power goes to the motor and how long the time is in between motor movements.

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########--My Components--##############
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I got my motor from a CD-walkman, it works nicely with:

Two 3V 25mA solar panels in parallel (since they're in parallel the current sums so adds up to 3V 50mA power supply). I got them from here: http://www.flexsolarcells.com/OEM_Components.htm

A 100 ohm resistor, a 3300uf capacitor and a 0.22uf capacitor, and some random 'signal' diode I found (it's not that important).
get them from here:
www.digikey.com or www.jameco.com or www.mouser.com, or some other place.

Comments

[paintsniper]

can u pls show me a top view or email me better pics to make it easier to build without using the schematic

[thestyrofoampeanut]

 agreed im not gettin much out of this picture

[leevonk]

I laid out my circuit exactly as the circuit diagram is drawn to show you that it is exactly the same and easy to go from the schematic to the circuit. That thing that says '100' is the resistor, that big cylindrical thing is the big capacitor, to the right of the capacitor the solar panel is connected. the bottom-most component is the diode. In other words, as I said,it's all laid out exactly as in he schematic,no tricks.

If you're a beginner it would be best to use a breadboard to make your circuit. Breadboards allow easy construction and modification of circuits without any soldering. Look up how to use them on google.