Windbelt from hard drive voice coil and magnets

Step 3 Assembly and operation

Use a nail through the ball bearing in the voice coil to attach the coil to a piece of wood.

Mount the magnets around the coil just as they were in the HD.

Tie a long length of ribbon to the heads on the voice coil.

Solder a couple of pieces of magnet wire to the contacts of the voice coil.

Solder the other ends of the magnet wire to a LED.

To operate, hold the wind belt in front of a fan with one hand and dynamically tighten the belt with the other, to light the led takes a fairly low frequency ( And consequently high amplitude).

Future steps, frame, rectification
Enjoy!

Comments

[john2010]

where on the voice coil do i solder the magnet wire ?

[Tool Using Animal]

When you look closely you should see two fine wires coming from the coil to the circuit board, where they are attached to the board is where you need to solder too.

[frickelkram]

Ok ... you where faster than I .. :-) I was too busy with the Helloween contest. I have an instructable at work but I am not finished yet. My design is nearly the same than yours. I also use old hard disc drive parts. I use two of them to get more power out of the construction. The main difference is that I try to build a device that can be used. I don't want to build just the proof of concept. I know that it works. But I try to find out how effective the design is and if it is really usable. At the moment I still experiment with belts and I am working on the design of the power electronics. Powering a led is nice but I try to get a clean voltage out of the system and maybe stack some of the generators to get even more power ... I think it will still take some time until I get a working device.