Flashlight Project: need some help please.

[jason303]

I noticed that if I put the leads on the button battery, the needle would slowly, but very visibly, go down the whole time I held it on there. When I held the leads to the cell battery for a long time, the needle never moved. Also, I've been messing with this flashlight all day long and none of the readings have changed at all, no matter what I've done.

My guess is that those little button batteries have a very small fraction of the capacity as the cell phone battery so it'll take alot of flashlight shining to drop the voltage of the cell battery. If that is the case it would take a lot of cranking to charge it back up. Attach a windmill to the crank and get some stimulus money.

[Irving]

So I hooked everything up like you suggested Jerry, and I got the needle to move, but only on the 0.5 mAh setting. The needle seemed like it was trying to all the way left, instead of going to the right like it does on a usual measurement. The needle would not budge on the 50 mAh or 250 mAh settings. What does this mean?

[jason303]

So I hooked everything up like you suggested Jerry, and I got the needle to move, but only on the 0.5 mAh setting. The needle seemed like it was trying to all the way left, instead of going to the right like it does on a usual measurement. The needle would not budge on the 50 mAh or 250 mAh settings. What does this mean?

Instead of going to the right means you should reverse polarity (switch + & -) and won't budge on the 50 & 250 mA scales means your light bulbs aren't pulling enough current to even register on your meter. Stick to the 0.5 scale.

[jerrymrc]

So I hooked everything up like you suggested Jerry, and I got the needle to move, but only on the 0.5 mAh setting. The needle seemed like it was trying to all the way left, instead of going to the right like it does on a usual measurement. The needle would not budge on the 50 mAh or 250 mAh settings. What does this mean?

Something is not right. It should move to the right. Unhook both wires from the generator and test the polarity of it making sure to reset your meter to read volts.

[Irving]

Hmmm, the thing with the generator is that I never touched those wires. All I did was solder a wire between the (+) tab on the original battery terminal, to the (+) on the battery, same thing for the (-).

If you look at the first and second picture, you can see that the White (+) and Black (-) wires go from the cell battery (far right) to the original battery terminals on the circuit board on the far left. The White and Black wires go around the generator, then under the on/off switch. The small red and black wires go from the generator (round thing in the middle), to the circuit board on the left. The larger red wires go from the switch to the board.

[kwando]

those windups are a joke... stock! thats cool that you are attempting to mod it.

go with a cree lamp, they are great!

check http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/

[jason303]

You should really just stick to measuring voltage at the battery. It's simpler and uninvasive to the circuit. Even those with much more electrical knowledge than you have would go this route because it's simpler. Good luck