|
Tools and equipment
required:
- Soldering iron (about 18W with
a fine bit) and solder
- Safety
glasses (wear them at all times)
- Long
nose pliers
- Side
cutters
- Wire
strippers (optional)
- Hot
glue gun and glue sticks (or an epoxy)
-
3 large capacitors (e.g 4700 µf)
-
1 efficient motor (e.g. portable CD player, Walkman, etc. motor)
-
FLED Solar Engine
1. Attach the three capacitors to
the motor body using a hot glue gun (you can use epoxy-resin but it's
easier with hot glue). Apply the glue to the lighter colored stripe on the
capacitor body (this stripe identifies the negative lead). Align the
capacitors vertically so that the bottom of each capacitor is
approximately 4 mm below the bottom face of the motor.
2. Bend the three negative
leads together and solder them as shown in the photograph.
3. Construct
a FLED solarengine.
4. With the two transistors resting
on the tops of the front two capacitors solder the emitter leg of the 3904
to a negative capacitor lead and the emitter leg of the 3906 to a positive
capacitor lead (the 3906 is a PNP transistor).
5. Now solder the black (negative)
motor lead to the protruding collector leg of the 3904 transistor (to
which the resistor is attached) and the red (positive) motor lead to any
one of the positive capacitor leads.
Congratulations you're almost
there !
6. From the two brass coated paper
clips supplied construct a ring with a diameter of approximately 85mm -
90mm. Bend the clips with a pair of long nose pliers (wear safety glasses
when you're doing this) and also trim to length with the pliers. Solder
together the ends of the wire to form the ring.
7. Attach the ring to your Trimet
using the positive leads of the three capacitors. Form a hook with the
leads to secure the ring prior to soldering. You will probably need to
extend the lead of the front right capacitor (see photograph) - use a
piece of the brass coated paper clip that you trimmed off in the previous
operation.
We've got the traction, the fuel tanks, the engine and the sensor now all
we need to add is the fuel converter and the drive wheel.
8. Solder two short (30mm long)
pieces of the PVC coated multi-strand wire to the solarcell. Solder the
red lead to the positive pad and the black lead to the negative. Take care
when doing this - do not over heat the tinned pads on the solarcell. These
are easy to solder because there is already a generous amount of solder on
the pads. Solder the red lead so that it runs parallel to the 'Panasonic'
text on the cell and the black lead so that it runs perpendicular to the
'Panasonic' text as shown in the photograph.
9. Solder the leads attached to the
solarcell to the capacitor leads - red lead to a positive capacitor lead
(any of those attached to the sensor ring) and black lead to a negative
capacitor lead (the lead nearest the light stripe on the capacitor).
Secure the solarcell to the body using a little hot glue (or a little
epoxy-resin). Do not allow the solarcell pads to touch any of the
component leads.
10. Cut a short section of hot glue
stick (about 6mm - 7mm long) with a pair of scissors or a craft knife
(take care!), melt a small hole in one end of the piece of glue stick (not
in your finger - it hurts!) and push the 'wheel' onto the motor shaft.
Position the 'wheel' so that there is between 5mm - 7mm from the bottom of
the 'wheel' to the bottom of the capacitors. This will allow the Trimet to
lean over onto two of the capacitors at the appropriate angle. You can
adjust this dimension later to produce the optimum performance. Ideally
you want the Trimet to skid along in a straight line - have you seen the
James Bond film where he drives a car on two wheels down a narrow alley -
like that!
Oh and by the way you've
finished.
Place your Trimet (wheel down) on a smooth surface (plastic table top,
piece of polished timber, etc) in sunlight (doesn't have to be full sun)
and wait for her / him to trigger (every 3 - 5 seconds in full sun). In
the absence of daylight you can also use a halogen lamp or an ordinary
bulb (although it will take longer to trigger).
Editors Note: TotalRobots is a British based robotics company. You can visit
their website and order some of their products off their
website. The above tutorial is Copyright © Total Robots.
Spencer Scott has written another excellent article about building a BEAM
Symet. You can read his article and get some
other ideas.
Powered by AkoComment! |
Categories 
Tags
why call it trimmet when mike tyden made the same thing and called it symet??