Saturday, March 17, 2012

more mystery project thoughts and ideas.

Mystery (increasingly steampunk) project update: Didn't do much yesterday except learn how to read the volts on my meter thing. Still not sure how to read amps yet, but then again I don't know much about what amps are anyway. I'll get there soon.

Also, gathered together the broken solar powered lights (little garden path lights and big motion sensor lights). Apparently these outside motion sensor lights they make are not very weather proof. Earwigs and moisture everywhere. So we brought them under cover to dry out before I take them apart. But I need to put down that thick rubber mat before I get started on that.

Today's goal for the mystery project is to go yard-saleing and see what I can glean for free or cheep. Still searching for some sort of battery that will do my bidding. Apparently I want a deep cycle battery. Still learning why.

I figure the solar panels come with this charge controller thing. This makes sure the battery does not get over charged. I'll have to find something like that for my human powered generator.

The more I work on this, the more it's turning into a functional art project rather than the purely practical origins it began with.

Still offering handspun yarn for person who can coach me through this.


1 comment:

Natalie Freed said...

I so wish I could fly out and play! :P If you're playing around with old electronics, be careful of capacitors that can store enough charge for a long time to give you a nasty shock. Rubber gloves are good. Amps (current) need to be measured in series with the circuit (ie. when you measure voltage you can place the probes in two places (in parallel basically) without changing the circuit, but when you measure current you have to break the circuit and then connect the probes to either side).
I don't know the answer to your battery question, but I think it's that it really depends on the battery.
Link about measuring current: http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_6/chpt_2/4.html