I worked with Christian to test the open circuit voltage and short-circuit current for our generator – in this case a stepper motor. This is the circuit that is based off of the diagram that Jeff recommended on the class site.
Leif and I also tested one of the shake flashlights . Using these as a model, we started to pursue the idea of replacing the copper coil with conductive thread. We used Bekaert’s Bekinox VN. It’s one of the most conductive threads that I’ve come across, so it seems like it would be well suited for this application. We put together a really scrappy model using the magnet from one of the large shake flashlights and were able to get a very small amount of voltage – less than 1 volt. We need to look into this more…
