Solar rc conversion

This instructable will teach you how to use the sun to your advantage. Those silly little remote controlled cars always drain the life from my perfectly good batteries and i wanted them to stop, it's really not nice you know! To solve the problem i bought some rechargeable ones but then i had to take them out and wait for them to charge while my car sat sadly un-driven and alone. so i mounted a recharger right on top of it!

Step 1 Materials

first you will need:

a hummer from radio shack ($7.99),
a solar walkway light, a screwdriver,
some pliers and electrical tape, a
soldering gun, a hobby knife, and 2 AA
rechargeable batteries.

Comments

[kudach]

Do you have any better pictures of the leads... my car looks nothing like that on the circit board.... i cant figure out how to connect the pannel to the leads

[Mr.NHRA]

 Just where the metal from the battery compartment comes through the plastic frame. Be careful to get the positive on the positive and so on.

[mr.RC]

nice dude i like it i did this project in 06 i won gold but not trophy


overall nice hummer :)

[Mr.NHRA]

 good enough for me! How do you start a group? ill try to figure it out until you get back to me

[mr.RC]

hey yea did you see my instructables they are good i got 30 views in 4 hours.


ill try to find a way to make a group ok.

[Mr.NHRA]

 yeah i didnt see any of them lol i read them though.

[mr.RC]

i published it yeterday and i allready have 52 views

[Mr.NHRA]

 Did you like enter it in a contest or how did you win anything?

[mr.RC]

no your project was similar to mine i won gold at the science fair.

do you want to be friends and make a group?

[Mr.NHRA]

 yeah "The Science of RC's" group if you can prove your 13!

[mr.RC]

i am 12 but in 6 more days ill be 13

[mr.RC]

no i won it in my science project in 06. and im 13 years old :) wana be freinds yes or no pls say yes

[mr. clean]

you definatey should have put a blocking diode in the positive line of the solar pnnel to keep the batteries from dischargeing through it, use the one from the solar light  they are usually good ones with very low voltage drop.

[Mr.NHRA]

Yeah! 5000 views!!!

[explosivetron]

ok wait a sec..... where is ur blocking diode? if you dont have one of them... it sounds silly but the battery will just give the solar panel back the energy when the solar panel isnt supplying current.... also how many volts does the hummer require to run.... if it uses 4 normal AA batteries thats 6 volts if you use rechargables it gives it only 4.8V... it just seems a bit tacky just to whack the solder leads from a rubbish solar panel into battery leads.... u might have to use the power from the batteries and the solar panel to get the thing to run... i dont know... did u already get it working.... please tell me how it worked because you cannot hope to charge 4.8 volts with a solar panel that only gives 2.... i dont know it could be more.. u might need to wire two solar panels in series to achieve the right amount of volts and use a 5 volt regulator with a heat sink

[12V]

if you want 6volts you need 5aa batteries (1.2x5=6)
4 batteries is 4.8v
it should not burn out if you use 7.2v but your car will be faster!(6 batteries)

[explosivetron]

I know that, i was merely commenting on the fact he thinks that a rechargeable battery has 1.5 volts... i could have suggested he needs 5 for 6volts, but without enough voltage from the solar panel, the batteries are not going to charge. the other thing is if you increase the volts it will not burn out striaght away but it will eventually scrap the motor. Its like using 12volts on a 6 volt motor... sure it will run super fast for a while until it just dies.

[amando96]

a transformer?

[explosivetron]

nah a regulator... coz a transformer steps down the voltage and current depending on rating and how many winds it has... it's drop is proportional to the number of winds in the coil. A regulator is simply that... it regulates the voltage ... not sure about current so you can go above the voltage and not damage the circuit, but it doesnt generate the difference if your under there like $4 aussie

[12V]

a transformer will only run on ac! but it can step down or up a voltage.

[explosivetron]

I think you can get DC transformers.... im not sure... but I didnt suggest it was DC haha, but it can transform AC into DC like in your phone or ipod charger

[Mr.NHRA]

sorry if i am not very good at these instructables im just 12

[explosivetron]

hey man thats cool... at least ur not instructing people about stuff they could kill themselves with. but yea this looks like a really good project.. its about being environmentally friendly which is good.. youll soon learn more about electrical stuff.

[Mr.NHRA]

thx and I'm trying

[Mr.NHRA]

it runs off of two AA s and that's 3 volts

[explosivetron]

1.2 times 2 equals 2.4V for a rechargeable

[Mr.NHRA]

yes it worked and i forgot to ad the step when i added a switch to the solar panel so it wouldn't blow itself up.

[bwb4]

Um.... could you please explain that to me?

[budsiskos]

could this run directly off solar and not use batteries how did you wire the solar panel in?did you connect the negative lead to the positive bater terminal or the negative one?

[Mr.NHRA]

no it cant run directly i tried. and no i put the negative on the negative.

[12V]

the solar panel does not produce enough current the solar panel produces about 50ma and the car needs 600ma and that's why the batteries go flat so quickly. the battery will charge with only 50ma but it takes about 18 hours to charge but the battery releases this energy very quickly and discharges much more quickly than it charges.

[explosivetron]

you could run it directly if u found a solar panel capable of supplying the right amount of Voltage and current say 6V at 500ma... maybe one capable of supplying that when its not a full capacity

[awang8]

But then you'll need lots of sunshine... It ain't no work indoors if directly.

^{_{Sorry. People usually like bad grammar.}}

[Mr.NHRA]

correct i planned on driving it on the sidewalk in front of my house which is outside. i should have thought of indoors

[budsiskos]

ok, but about how long does it take for the panel to charge the batteries?

[Mr.NHRA]

like 12 hours

[thepaul1993]

lol

[novato16]

OK then what step did u skip so i dint blow my self

[Mr.NHRA]

i skipped the "solder a switch to the red wire on the solar panel " step

[budsiskos]

what solar light did you use?