...at least that seemed the right title :)
This gents project was brought up by Chet, in the 'please read' thread regarding Chris Hunter.
It seems the thread has moved off again back to EMP related explorations and so I felt the work of Tommy to be worthy of a thread.
I do recall that another guy (sorry I forgot who) was doing something similar when Steve first started this group.
The principle being, to pulse a very efficiently driven LED light inside an enclosure of solar panels.
The recovered energy may, just may, be able to drive the light in perpetuity.
If so, the hope would be for a usable output, an extra from the system that could run perhaps another LED on the outside of the system, for reading or whatever else.
He mentioned a focusing solar collector and that brought in some home experiments a while back with spheres.
If you take the dome off a dollar store 'snow globe' you have a good round solar collector....like a magnifying glass but focusing the sun from any direction. The water inside really helps the focus and you need far less solar panel size for equivalent outputs (also being mindful of the way old sages in Egypt would say of the Nile water being charged by the sun for running to the pyramids at Giza).
These fellas have taken that sort of globe focus effect to a new high with their designs:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/rawlemon-solar-devices#home
Also, a project design last year, for 'the guys in New York' who were interested in my own devices.
It was a sea water powered emergency light....something with no batteries, could be on a ship storage shelf for many years needing no maintenance and enabling a good strong beacon light during emergencies. Or tip a few of them in the water for a night time rescue.
Well, the project sank but the idea might carry on. The very fact that it was water powered and yet gave such a strong light is where i'm headed.
Low input, strong flash output.
Here is a demo vid of where I was up to, named the Sea Egg:
Hopefully such experiments can work alongside Tommy's direction of progress.
Edit to add:
Having now seen Lasersaber's flashlight concept new video, a flashing version of it may be a route to explore.
Perhaps the right flash frequency for a particular solar panel type, amorphous, monocrystalline, polycrystalline.
Frequencies from 1Hz to many KHz.
LS's new video -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7D_9Ill2wM
With such a project and LS's long runners in mind, i've just ordered 100x MPSA18's :D
Hopefully they'll bring forward other ultra low energy projects too.
Tests this evening/tomorrow are to include different types of panels, different LED's and a 555 timer circuit to change the frequency rate.
The idea being to see about the harvesting characteristics.
This project will move to my Bench in the main forum area (which i've asked Peter to set up)..because Tommy isn't in this section.
Seems best if he is able to contribute :)
@Chet - further to our conv, here is the actual YouTube link to the Sea Egg video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eerPaKJokTQ