Monkey

At last a circuit that works, I agree with the sentiment of the person who wrote this page. This is the best little circuit on the web.

I have the tiny solar cells figured and I was able to get my now redundant cell phone to charge off them, but my ipod was refusing everything other than fossil power. I have just breadboarded this and at last got the little bugger to chirp and soak up the juice. This was also thanks to a separate individual on the instructables site who had drawn out how to connect up resistors to the USB socket in order to dupe the ipod into accepting its host.

Today's success was a complete fluke as I was just fondling ICs I had scavanged from other stuff and looking up datasheets at random when this image came up in my search for the 78L05 I had under the lens. The next phase is for me to package this with a piece of old cell phone that will charge lithium ion batteries, then they can charge other devices. I had some batteries I had charged during the day on the solar power, so they were my first electron shot to the ipod.

Why am I bothering? I have no idea, but the little bites of understanding are deeply satisfying to the monkey part of my brain.

Meanwhile down in the shop the first stage of gluing has been completed and that is sitting quietly awaiting the day when it can be released from traction.