Electronics > Electronics

suggestions for charging batteries

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exl949:
ok, so i have plans for something, but i have one problem, my bot will be away for long periods of time, like weeks, and it will spend most of its time in a breezy environment, is there someting out there to charge the batteries using wind? its a dark environment too so solar is out of the question, i guess i havent been looking for the right thing so far. any suggestions?

thanks in advance..

Admin:
hmmmm sounds like you got a tricky problem . . . look into mars rover technology as it is very similar to what you want . . .

you will probably need to consider all of these options, and possibly even a combination of them:

1) use a lot of batteries (calculate how much power you will need for 'weeks')

2) make your robot extremely power efficient

3) wind power generator . . .

making a wind power generator is very easy. it is just like hooking up solar panels to a battery for recharging it.

steps:
get a highly geared DC motor, make sure the gears are very efficient and new
attach a long blade fan to it
attach the ground wire of the motor to the ground of your battery
attach motor power wire to the + end of a diode
attach the - end of the diode to the positive end of your battery

the diode prevents the battery spinning the motor, so that power can only come out of the motor . . .

you will also have to consider how to shut down all your systems until your battery has been recharged again. consider a battery power monitor.

and you will probably have to lower the fan when your robot moves so as to not resist the movement . . .

can you have a recharge station?

zamboniman60:
Get some energizer lithium batteries as a backup. These batteries hold a lot of power, and can be used as a backup, maybe even as your main powersource. Consider getting a fuel cell kit (http://www.discoverthis.com/fuelcelcaran.html) and cannibalizing the cell; just use ant weight pneumatics (http://www.robotmarketplace.com/marketplace_ant_pneu.html) to store the hydrogen.

exl949:
thanks admin! i will try that!

jonas:
here's a link to the technology of the mars rover http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/technology/

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