about
The Dragonfly uses a meter movement to flap the wings of the dragonfly in the sunshine. The circuit tends to lock up because the radio shack FLED is exposed to direct sunlight - these date back to the summer of 2000
first fly
This was my first completed BEAM project. i never could have done it without Ben Hitchcock's help. Well not as quickly and efficiently anyway.
after a year of use the transistor failed (it was junk to begin with) and the glue i used to hold the solar panel down ate thru a wire. i replaced the transistor (installing a 3 pin socket for easy replacement in the future) and put on a new wire. it works amazingly even in low light. i also changed the wings from mylar, cut from a Statshield bag, to thin aluminum foil. the mylar curled in the light (from the heat) and looked horrible - i am very pleased with the foil however.
i used the same Circuit in Magbot 1.0 with the coil in place of the meter movement.
second fly
This was my second dragonfly (same circuit). it learned a lot from the first one and put this one together much better because of it. both were presents but i've considered trying to sell some.
i used the same Circuit in Magbot 1.0 with the coil in place of the meter movement.
circuit
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for completeness i've included this picture of the Magbot that I made around the same time. It wasn't the most beautiful thing and didn't work all that well but was still a worthwhile endeavor. If I had it t o do again I would use a rare earth magnet and would have spent more time balancing (and lightening) the system. As it is here the butterfly is so heavy that it only flutters a little.
The coil is a ideally a 300 turn, 8 layer coil, 10K, 1 mH [thanks
solarbotics
]- mine is about 340 turn, ?? layer (about 8), 15K, 1 mH. i'm still experimenting with different coils and working on balancing and beautifing the board...
This originally was the same FLED circuit i used for my dragonflies - i merely replaced the meter movement with a coil. i now use a traditional SE instead. i recommend doping or covering the FLED in some way to keep light out - this helps prevent them from locking up. i use red Radio Shack FLED's and have had much trouble with them locking up (maybe i should try a different FLED?????) - btw the emitter of the NPN is grounded.
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if you can call it that, this is the circuit used in the Magbot and Dragonflys. Each of the elongated elipses represents a single solder pad with 3 holes (each being a single net). By using these nets I was able to glom together the circuit.
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ChristopherPepe - 01 Oct 2006
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