Print PDF
Favorite
Email
Step 2Test it for yourself
Go ahead and dig out a few diodes from your tacklebox, toolbox, bead drawer, or whatever you keep all your electronic goodies in and put them in parallel. Connect your voltmeter to either side and take a reading in ambient light. I get about 4-5mV in ambient light.
Next, grab your maglight and while still taking a reading shine a focused beam on the diodes and see what your voltmeter says. In my configuration using the diodes I had at hand, I was able to get more than 100mV from four diodes. That's not too shabby, especially if you're shuffling that voltage off to a capacitor to either save for later or to build up a larger charge to do something more useful, like light an LED (yeah, like that's more useful) or run your garbage disposal.
You don't have to worry too much about which direction the strip is facing as long as you face the strips all in the same direction.
Next, grab your maglight and while still taking a reading shine a focused beam on the diodes and see what your voltmeter says. In my configuration using the diodes I had at hand, I was able to get more than 100mV from four diodes. That's not too shabby, especially if you're shuffling that voltage off to a capacitor to either save for later or to build up a larger charge to do something more useful, like light an LED (yeah, like that's more useful) or run your garbage disposal.
You don't have to worry too much about which direction the strip is facing as long as you face the strips all in the same direction.
| « Previous Step | Download PDFView All Steps | Next Step » |
 |
Add Comment
|
