This week, we spent a few hours in the ECE Lab, constructing and finalizing the induction charger circuit. After testing the circuit board for a few weeks, we finally soldered all the wires today and categorized them into a organized form. Along with the finalizing of the circuitry, we were also able to charge two 1.2 volt NiMH batteries that were in a series configuration. The first photo below shows the total voltage of the batteries to be 2.416 volts. After, wiring the batteries directly to the output of the induction charger, 5 minutes of continuous shaking of the magnet-coil system increased the voltage to 2.43 volts as seen in the first photo. The third photo below shows how the charging system was setup.
Haseeb and Hamad went to the ECE department to do some testings in the lab regarding the circuitry side of the project. it was an attempt to create an electrical circuit that works well for the project. Wires, capacitor, rectifier, bread board and diodes what were used. Haseeb did some testings and took measurements of the voltage as can be seen in the first picture below. A video of our basic power setup can be seen below.
Our AA charger finally arrived, which means we can proceed with building up our charger. The whole group met to start figuring out how our circuit should be like and whether we should include a capacitor or not. Below are pictures of the parts and pictures of the group trying to put the pieces together.
Using the rectifier to convert from DC to AC
the parts and pieces of our project
Hasseb and Andrew working on the electrical circuit
This week we recorded more electrical
readings such as voltage and current that the shake flashlight produced. This
week, however, the results we got were different. For some unfamiliar reason,
the amperage from the flash light maxed at 200 milliamps. Also, when voltage
reading was taken, the voltage kept spiking within the oscilloscope which was
unexpected. We’re still researching on these spikes and based on current
knowledge, we believe there is a short circuit somewhere in the wiring. For
now, the parts we currently have are: wiring, magnet, induction coil, casing,
springs, rechargeable AA NiMH batteries, switch, capacitors, and rectifier.
This week’s out of lab meeting was about constructing the circuitry and
bringing the components together. We intend on doing this in the week 6 lab
where we will construct a system which will use the current from the
coil-magnet induction system to charge the NiMH batteries. The part we are
still waiting on is the AA battery powered emergency cell phone charger that
will be used to power up a phone.
The Shake Flashlight disassembled into its components
The magnet from the Shake Flashlight and the springs we intend to use in our cellphone charger
Week 4 Updates - All the components needed as of now have
been ordered and some of them have also been received. The do-it-yourself shake
flashlight arrived recently and we have been tinkering with it for a while. We have
conducted many tests on it to determine if this magnet-coil system is able to
provide enough power to charge a cell phone. After dissembling the shake
flashlight, we used a multi-meter to determine several voltage and current
values that we need to charge a cell phone. As of now, the magnetic-coil system
is able to provide a constant current of .632 Amps which is just enough to
charge a cell phone battery. As for the design aspect of the whole project, a
new idea was finally incorporated into the design. We finally decided and
bought a AA battery powered emergency cell phone charger that should we will
use to charge the phone. The basic concept is that the magnet coil system will
provide electricity to charge two AA NiMH rechargeable batteries that will be
placed into the emergency cell phone charge which will then be able to charge
the phone.
A few links that helped us inspire these ideas can be found
below.
This pas week we searched for magnets. We were thinking of
using Neodymium magnet that is 1.25 T, which is considered to be a very strong
magnet. However, we are considering other options too. Furthermore, we bought
shake flashlight from amazon to get an idea of what our charger should be like.
In addition, we have a Creo sketch of our charger that can be seen in figure 1. We found much useful information for our project for example: 1.1 Amps
charge the phone 1% per minute. In addition, we decided to take off the
capacitor from the shake flashlight we bought and use it for our project
because it is a perfect match (1F and can store up to 5.5V). After doing some
tests we will decide whether to have a switch or whatever charge is on the
capacitor goes straight to the phone. In addition, if we are going to use a
battery we might not need a capacitor. Finally, we divided tasks and discussed
the scientific aspects of our project when we met outside the lab. Along with our side work, we also researched faraday's law.
In our week 2 lab, we brainstormed different sketches for our charger. In addition to discussing equations that are going to be involved like the induction formula..etc. We discussed what type of materials should we have to build up or charger for example having Neodymium magnet as one of the required materials.
