Alt-BEAM Archive

Message #05234



To: beam@sgiblab.sgi.com
From: Bob Shannon bshannon@tiac.net
Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 12:08:02 -0400
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: Light Bulbs for Solar Cells




Terry Newton wrote:

> Here's a (I hope) simple question for you all:
> What kind of light bulbs work best for panasonic solar cells?
>
> I was fooling around with my micro-picbot powered by a 3733 cell
> (with evolving nervous networks on-board:) and noticed I got about
> 30% activity time in sunlight, but only about 4% active directly
> underneath a metal-hooded 75 watt bulb that seems as bright or
> brighter than the sunlight was. Surely there must be a better
> substitute for sunlight. The specs say not for indoor light but
> I didn't realise it was that bad. (used to the slowness I guess
> but darn, now I know what I'm missing...)

Switch over to polysilicon cells, and this problem will go away!

It will probably jump up to a 50% active to charge ratio in full sun, or

maybe more depending on how much cell you add.


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