SolarPendulumAddon

How it happened

I was watching my magnetic penulum swing away when i noticed a faint rattling sound. Turns out there was a paperclip under the base of the pendulum that was getting caught up in the magnetic field as the arm swung by. This caused the clip to move a little which was making the noise. I got to thinking - the pendulum is interesting enough but it would be cool if there was more going on. There's tons of real estate on the pendulum base for an external circuit.

The Idea

Originally i was planning to build another solar circuit on the base. Now i'm thinking i'd rather use the pendulum to power the extra circuit. if i put another coil in the path of the swinging pendulum (which has a magnet as the ballast) i'll get a small current in that coil everytime the magnet swings by. i can use that 'packet' of energy to slowly charge up a storage capacitor to power the secondary circuit. i'll bread board something up to see what kind of power i can get out of this setup. i'd like to make a NightEyes^? style circuit.

Another Idea

I could use the magnet to power a purely mechancal circuit as well. Similar to the 'bouncing paperclip' the magnet could move a small ferric part, say the wings of a DragonFly^?...

-- ChristopherPepe - 17 Mar 2006