Shake it like a Tic-Tac!

Rechargeable led flashlight powered by magnets housed in the obligatory mints container.

Step 1: Parts

PARTS:

150 ft. 30 gauge enamel-coated magnet wire
4 1/8" rare earth magnets
4 rectifier diodes (IN4007 MIC)
Resistor (22 ohm)
White led
Switch
Some sort of small rechargeable batteries

Ballpoint pen
2 plastic washers or doodads
Tic-Tac container
Hot glue
Epoxy

Step 2: Make magnet tube:

This part could really be made from anything (i.e. stiff paper), I used the pen because the magnets just fit inside the tube.

Cut your tube a little smaller than the length of the Tic-Tac box. Find some washers or plugs to use as end caps, these could also be made out of paper. Mine were plastic gears with the teeth sanded off.

Stick all 4 magnets together and put them in the tube. Glue on your endcaps being careful not to get any glue on the magnets.

Step 3: Wind the coil:

Cut a slot down one of the endcaps.

Leave 3" of wire hanging out of this slot and begin carefullly winding the coil. Winding this coil is probably the biggest pain in the ass of this project. I had many failures. There is a ton of information on the web about coil winding, but my best advice to you is go slow. The neater and tighter the wire is wrapped the more effective it will be.

When you get to the end of the coil tape your wire off and leave about 3" hanging off the end.

Step 4: Modify top:

Remove label from the Tic-Tac container and take out the top.

Cut off about 1/4" of the bottom leaving 1/8" lip. Save the scrap.

Drill a hole big enough for the led to poke through.

Step 5: Make mount for switch:

Cut off enough of the scrap to make a plate for under the lid. Use little pieces of scrap to shim the plate so it is level.

Cut out a slot for your switch in the plate.

I used super glue to tack these pieces in place.

Step 6: Glue switch in place:

I just hot glued the switch to the plate. I also glued the led in place at this point, but it's not in the picture.

Step 7: Circuit:

This is the circuit:

Step 8: Solder it together:

This is all free hand soldering, hopefully yours will turn out less messy than mine.

Step 9: Attach top to case:

Now just slide the top along with the circuit into the case. I think it helps to epoxy the top on, but you could probably just superglue it.

I ended up painting the inside of the case white for that crisp look, but I think I like it better clear.

Shake for 60 seconds and enjoy!

Comments

[Tekaito]

i just wanna know can i switch the rechrgable battery with capacitor??

[colin55]

Making the coil as short as possible will increase its output as only the few turns near each end of the magnet are producing any output.

[valdimlajr]

Please let me share my experience working on this project. I have 3 Neo magnets 10 mm in diameter x 10 mm length housed in a plastic tube ID = 11 x OD = 13 mm with 1300 turns of AWG #28 magnet wire(0.30 mm). The coil length is 50 mm. The tube length is 150 mm. I have provided spring on both ends of the 3 magnets attached to each other acting as one long magnet. Shaking the finished assembly gave me 7.4 volts. I tried recharging my phone and it gave 33% charge after rigorous shaking for 15 minutes. I am not satisfied with the result so I have to make a new coil assembly using bigger magnets of 22 mm in diameter and 25 mm in length. My target is to shake COMFORTABLY( I am thinking how old folks could shake it without losing their arms). By the way, I used 4700 uF capacitor and skottsky diodes for my rectifier as well as germanium diodes.

[armatodo]

Very Cool.

[HemiHunter]

hey where do you buy all that stuff at

[girrrrrrr2]

batterys from a small rechargeable r/c car... magnet wire from a three pack at raidoshack... it is the red one of the three pack... and then the resistors and everything in those drawers at the raidoshack... you can probably get the batterys from the zip zaps at raidoshack also...

[coolmike8789]

where could i get a battery similar to the one you used?

[girrrrrrr2]

I ripped mine out of an old Zip Zap type car that my mom got at Safeway a few years ago...

[slyfox117]

try a radio shack. i know you can find the magnet wire there for about 2 bucks. but mine game with 3 different gauges so probably cheaper

[colin55]

Realizing the "Shake It Like a Tic Tac" project will not work, I have designed a coil and magnet arrangement that will illuminate a white LED when a Tic Tac box is shaken. The "Shake It Like a Tic Tac" project will not work as the coil is longer than the magnet and any voltage induced in the turns from the North pole will be negated by the flux produced by the south pole. The final result is zero. The only reason why the developer of the above project released the project was due to a small charge in the rechargeable cells leading him to deduce the project was successfully producing a current. It reminds me of the release of Cold Fusion by Pons and Fleishman, before they thoroughly investigated their results. I don't want anyone to waste their time attempting this project and being disappointed. Magnetism and electromagnetic energy is difficult enough to comprehend without the frustration of going down the wrong path. The small magnet used in the project above does not give enough flux to produce a worthwhile output. The magnet I have used is 20mm diameter and slides sidewards past two coils of 600 turns each and wired so that the voltages combine. In addition, the output charges two separate 470u electrolytics via single diodes so that you are not losing 1.2v from the generated voltage. The white LED taps across the two electrolytics (in series) - another clever innovation. The output is not very bright but it is the maximum obtainable from this type of arrangement. It is far greater than using small magnets in a tube and bunching the winding so that it is as narrow as possible. I will be adding the project to Instructables very soon, but in the meantime I can be contacted at: TALKINGELECTRONICS.COM Colin Mitchell [e-mail]

[Vaughanabe13]

EXACTLY. I was reading this project and I'm thinking, "what is going on here? This design CAN'T work!?" If you look at something commercial like the "forever flashlight" you can see the travel of the magnet is much longer than the coil. This design wouldn't produce any significant voltage, and I can't imagine how much time he wasted winding those coils. I would be very interested in reading your instructable. Is it up yet?

[colin55]

SHAKE TIC TAC LED TORCH In the diagram, it looks like the coils sit on the “table” while the magnet has its edge on the table. This is just a diagram to show how the parts are connected. The coils actually sit flat against the slide (against the side of the magnet) as shown in the diagram: The output voltage depends on how quickly the magnet passes from one end of the slide to the other. That's why a rapid shaking produces a higher voltage. You must get the end of the magnet to fully pass though the coil so the voltage will be a maximum. That’s why the slide extends past the coils at the top and bottom of the diagram. The circuit consists of two 600-turn coils in series, driving a voltage doubler. Each coil produces a positive and negative pulse, each time the magnet passes from one end of the slide to the other. The positive pulse charges the top electrolytic via the top diode and the negative pulse charges the lower electrolytic, via the lower diode. The voltage across each electrolytic is combined to produce a voltage for the white LED. When the combined voltage is greater than 3.2v, the LED illuminates. The electrolytics help to keep the LED illuminated while the magnet starts to make another pass.

[ReCreate]

What makes you think it does not work,can't you see the picture? Or did i miss something?

[eric4435]

I know exactly what you mean about the north and south pole working against each other. It would generate a bit of electricity though as the magnet gets close enough to either end of the tube, not as much as it possibly could though. Say the tube is 3 inches long and the collection of magnets is 1 in long. The coil should begin at one end, progress for one inch, stop, the wire should then be parallel to the tube for the next inch, and coiled in the other direction for the last inch. Maybe I'll draw a picture.

[handuka]

i have made it and it works , even when i short out the capacitor,when i connect the shaker seperately on a voltometer i get .7 volts

[agust]

I just built this a flashlight by exactly the same specs as shown in this project except I used a capacitor instead of a battery and it works brilliantly. I can short the capacitor and then charge it up to five volts. Colin you are wrong in you statement about this not working the statement is pompous and ill thought out.

[acmefixer]

@agust
Your "pompous and ill thought out" is not needed and is against the be nice policy. I bought a shake flashlight with a clear plastic handle, and the coil and magnet can be seen. The coil covers only the center third of the tube where the magnet slides. The magnet enters and exits the coil completely so that the most energy is transferred to the coil. If the magnet stays within the coil, the energy isn't as great as when it goes completely through the coil.

That being said, this flashlight takes a lot of shaking, and even then it doesn't produce much light, and the LED soon grows dim. It was not worth the money in my opinion. (I think it was twenty dollars.) There are better hand powered light; some have a squeeze handle, some have a crank.

[colin55]

How many turns did you put on the coil?

[agust]

I have no clue how many turns I did, I just fixed my pipe (I used a medical syringe with the piston taken out) to the sewing machine and slammed down on the pedal. Colin I recoment that you build one of these so that you can participate in the discussion not only from the theoretical side. Be a participant and not a spectator. One point I want to tell everyone is that using Shotky diodes could be benificial because of their low voltage drop.

[colin55]

If you don't know how many turns you put on the coil and your project worked, maybe you can answer all the emails I get from readers who did not get their project to work.

[ReCreate]

Quote one.

[agust]

Of course I can. So lets begin: 74% of your correspondents failed to burn or scrape the insulation of the copper wire for the coil. This can be remedied by burning or scraping the end of the copper and solder it back in place. 18% of them connected the diode bridge the wrong way round (boy is that embarrassing). 82% are using broken batteries (shorted or too high resistance) or too big batteries (takes forever to charge). A capacitor is good during development because its behavior is more reliable. 23% have a short in the coil or the copper is broken somewhere. Measure it and you will see if its broken. You could possibly measure the resistance to see if it is shortened but I do not really know what to expect from that measurement. 17% never actually tried but like socializing and theorizing online. 42% have analysis-paralysis and can not start without solving it in their head before beginning... like how many turns do I have to have on the coil? How much current can I generate? How big should the magnet be? Does the length of the pipe matter? 6% have a cold soldering point somewhere. 100% of them are seeking help from someone that has not managed to get it to work in the first place. (kindling the cinder to a flame.) Some people may fall into more than one category. 95% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

[ReCreate]

Thats a total of 467%...Something is not right here

[davidprosser]

 Well it kind of is right. If I have 100 people in a hall i might say that 30% of them had coffee this morning - that's 30 people. I could also say that 99% percent of the people in the hall went to sleep last night - thats 99 people. that doesn't mean i have 129 people :P

[acmefixer]

Hrm.. That 1 person who stayed up all night must've been trying to come up with a sly way to bamboozle us with statistics. I just knew there was a reason why you were dozing off... ;-)

[mr2monster]

You fail to calculate that 64% of those mentioned fall into 31.4% of the categories mentioned....

[ReCreate]

Well then...ITs still 400%

[ReCreate]

About 400

[agust]

Percentages are like magic.

[ReCreate]

Ah...O...K?

[colin55]

Obviously I have not seen your arrangement but bunching up the coil will make the whole arrangement much more efficient.

[agust]

That was not the issue. You claimed that this would not work but it does. It may be inefficient and impractical but it works brilliantly. You should try it. Its fun.

[Alcreion]

umm yeah... have you even made this your self to prove your statement? why would he ever bother to put the effort to post this and make a pdf?

[colin55]

(removed by author or community request)

[agust]

I have made this and could I please have 10.000 dollars?

[silverbyte]

Ignore Alcreion, he's obviously a young punk who doesn't know what he's talking about and is talking trash, you'de be wasting your breath if you did. that being said, im interesting in knowing the exact mathematics required to produce a device that can output lets say.... (i know this is a long shot) 5volts with 300mAh current. I don't know how much 300mAh equates to microFarads in a capacitor but I have a device in mind which would require that much energy. Is that device possible in a 2inch x 2inch x 4inch coil ?? I would love to see your project if you every do publish it here. I recently watched some college classroom videos on the Induction motor and I understand alot more today than i did one week ago how electromagnetism works.

[jlynn2]

How many bottles have you drank so far ?

[ReCreate]

looks like he drank 5

[Alcreion]

umm lol? if your so smart then why dont you stop wasting your time commenting and posting an instructable on your model?

[imrobot]

ummm it obviously works if theirs a picture of it working!!