LastAMP by themindseye

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

A "LAMP" for exhausting almost all of the remaining energy from a "dead" AA battery.
Sales figures from the leading battery manufacturers suggest that enough AA batteries were sold in 2016 to supply every American with 10 batteries, each.
Most common battery for US household use is the AA size "penlight" battery. An AA battery is sometimes referred to as HP7 in Britain.
The International Electrotechnical Commission designates the non-rechargeable AA battery as R6 & LR6. While the folks at the American National Standards Institute define an AA battery as size type 15 (e.g., 15D & 15A).
A "discharged" AA alkaline battery could have 0.8 - 1.33V of remaining "life" in it when you discard it. [from "Linden's Handbook of Batteries," Mc-Graw-Hill, 2001] In fact, the batteries removed from "dead" toothbrushes used during testing of this project, had 1.33V left in them.
This thing is derived from a circuit called a "joule thief" that was engineered by Big Clive at:http://www.bigclive.com/joule.htm
This LAMP circuit uses a tilt switch (or, sensor) for powering the LED from the presumed, dead AA battery. The parts required for this project are:
BG Micro (bgmicro.com):
1x - 1/4 watt 5% resistors. Quantity of 200 - BG Part Number: RES1136 - $3.66
1x - Toroid cores are #6 mix(yellow) - BG Part Number: COL1058 - $1.10
1x - 2N3904 NPN TO-92 40V, 100 pcs - BG Part Number: TRN2N3904 - $6.00
Mouser (mouser.com):
1x - 611-RB-231X2 C&K Components Tilt Switches ROLLING BALL RB-231X2 $1.12 1,000/$0.694
OR, 611-RB-220-07AR C&K Components Tilt Switches ROLLING BALL RB-220-07A R $1.00 1,000/$0.615
OR, 612-TM1000Q E-Switch Tilt Switches 20mA 20VDCTM1000Q $1.54 1,050/$0.759
1x - 604-WP7113LSECKJ4 Kingbright 5MM LOW CURRENT ORANGE LED WP7113 $0.49 1,000/$0.176
OR, 859-LTL2R3FU3JSR Lite-On Amber 604nm Clear 5mm LTL2R3FU3JSR $0.20 500/$0.124
OR, 604-WP483EDT Kingbright Orange 625nm Diffused 7mcd WP483EDT $0.18 1,000/$0.081
1x - 12BH311P-GR Eagle Plastic Devices Holders 1 "AA" PC LEADS BLK $0.97 1,000/$0.53
And, two pieces (2x) of different colored thin 24 gauge (or, thinner) wire about 13-inches long, each. These wires are wrapped 10 times around and through the toroid. Upon completion, you will have four pieces of wire poking up and away from the toroid. It's easiest to wrap the wires together, two-at-a-time, around the toroid. See the wiring diagram and the photograph for a clear demonstration of this technique.
You will then join two wires from opposite sides of the toroid together. These two wires will be a different color (e.g., blue and yellow). This will result in a toroid that has three (3) connection points (i.e., a single blue, a single yellow, and a joined blue + yellow). It doesn't matter which color wire gets connected to the resistor and the transistor + LED. Just make sure that the dual joined connection is soldered to the red (+) connection from the AA battery holder.
Before you attempt to thread the lid onto the base, apply some standard household bar soap to the threads. If you get stuck, a wrench is supplied for helping to "coax" a stubborn lid off of the LAMP canister base.
Remember, reduce, reuse, and recycle.