Alt-BEAM Archive
Message #03686
To: beam@corp.sgi.com
From: "John A. deVries II" zozzles@lanl.gov
Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 10:09:33 -0600
Subject: [alt-beam] Why not a new Solar Engine design?
At 08:42 AM 5/25/99 , Dave Hrynkiw wrote:
>At 02:04 AM 5/25/1999 , Evan Kwong wrote:
>>about building a solar engine with a UJT and an SCR.
>>
>>Has anyone tried / analyzed / tested this circuit?
>>Is it true that it is "...a new and improved circuit that surpasses the
>>efficiency of the original circuit by about 100 %. "?
>
>It is more efficient when using low-power solarcells. Otherwise (like when
>using our SC series), it'll lock up after the first pulse. The UJT is a
>bear to find though!
And Dave scores a whopping 1000 points for noting that the SC series has a
lock-up problem (even though I faintly recall that it is an oscillation
problem rather than a "just can't turn off problem.") And no, I'm not
being the least bit sarcastic.
Nonetheless, given the relatively poor opinion people have of solarengines
in general (with exception of the Suneater series) and the fact that there
have been successful relaxation oscillators for a Very Long Time it seems
to me that some third "family" of devices should be designable. After all,
the story I heard about the original solarengine is that Tilden hacked away
in a trial-and-error manner with various arrangements of transistors until
he found one that worked... acceptably well .
Speaking of the reviled FLED-style circuit, it was the very first thing I
built, using the Solarbotics kit of three years ago and I've honestly never
had any problems with it. The device was a snap to put together (probably
less than 15 minutes, but then I've been soldering stuff since I was 8 and
literally soldered every joint in the Z80 computer I put together in
1978/79.) That solarengine has a set of miniature chimes attached to the
motor which spins every time the motor kicks -- since the chimes themselves
merely spread out radially, I used a wire-tie to act as a "clapper".
Sadly, when I showed the results to Tilden, he was less than impressed, but
that was apparently because his former neighbors (in Canada?) had a set of
chimes which tended to drive him up the wall. In any case, my
solarengine-driven chimes sit happily on top of the Macintosh I use at my
girlfriend's house. I suppose I'll have to scan in a photo and put it on
the Heretics site.
Zoz
---------------------------------------------------------------
John A. deVries II
zozzles@lanl.gov
------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroups.com home: http://www.egroups.com/group/alt-beam
http://www.egroups.com
- Simplifying group communications
Home