Category Archives: Electronics

Flea market wafer

I even got to play the rube and ended up paying $20 for a 8″ silicon IC wafer.  I think this one was the most beautiful one the vendor had in stock:

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Photon Battery Device (PBD)

Hey it worked!  Finally put together my new solar-powered ultra-high power LED and it’s sweet!  The solar cell is 1W and the LED runs at 2W, so for every two minutes of sun you get one minute of light!

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LED First Light

Wow, LED’s are amazing!  I just fired up my Cree XM-L2 LED with a 3-cell NiMH battery pack and a 0.91 ohm resistor to keep the current under control.  The circuit runs at 500 mA, which corresponds to 1.4 W for the LED and 0.4 W for the resistor… or 75% circuit efficiency and probably just shy of 200 lumens.  With 2000mAh batteries I should get about 4 hours of light.

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Energy Conversion Project

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