Project Proposal: Power from Stray light

Michael Halverson Sang Hyun Han

ECE 445, Fall 2008

I. Introduction

In China and India, people experience regular blackouts on certain days of the week due to national power shortage. Our project is to give people temporary lighting during the blackout from the power harvested from ordinary use of lighting during non-blackout days. Objectives The idea is to harness the stray light from a light bulb and use it to charge up a battery. Then in situations like a blackout or even in an emergency, the light bulb will be able to run off of the power it collected from itself. This way the light can be used still in situations like lighting up a hallway that leads to an exit for a building. This will be done by placing solar cells around the light bulb to collect the light. The idea is to collect the light that will not interfere with the light that is used to see by. In addition, when the circuit detects that the circuit has lost power it will switch over to the power that is has been storing and uses this. In this way the goal is to have the ability to use the light bulb for at least one hour after the main power source shuts down for some reason. This way in that hour of temporary light, people will have the ability to see and prepare themselves for a known power outage, if the main power outage last longer then the battery. The user of this product expects following benefits: Ability to use lighting during blackouts or emergency Have extra time to prepare for blackout The user of this product expects following features: Automatic switch to battery power Long lasting life of circuit and battery Minimum of one hour of emergency light guaranteed

II. Design

Block Diagram

Light Bulb

Power Source

Power Selector

Output Protection

Battery

DC-AC Converter

Transformer

Charging Circuit

Input Protection

Solar Source

Block Diagram Description Light Bulb: We have chosen to use a Compact Florescent Light Bulb (10W) that will receive power from the power selector. Power Source: This is the power supplied by the Building this. This is what originally supplies the Light Bulb so that our circuit will be able to harvest energy from the Light Bulb. Power Selector: This circuit will detect when the Power Source has lost power and switches the Light Bulb to the Battery. The circuit will get input from the Power Source and Output Protection circuit. Output Protection: This circuit will protect the rest of the circuits from over voltage and current that is produced from the Transformer. Battery: We have chosen 7.4V 4000 mAh Ni-HM battery. This will receive power from the Charging Circuit and will send its own power to the DC-AC Converter. DC-AC Converter: This circuit will convert the 7.4VDC to 7.4 VAC to be used by the rest of the circuits. This will be sent to the Transformer.

Transformer: This circuit will step up the voltage from 7.4 V to 120 V. The new voltage will be then sent to the Output Protection circuit. Charging Circuit: This circuit will charge up the Battery and will detect when the Battery is fully charged. The Charging Circuit will receive its power from the Input Protection Circuit. Input Protection: This circuit will protect the rest of the circuits from reverse polarity, over voltage and current. This will be checking the voltage and current that is coming from the Solar Source. Solar Source: We have chosen 8 solar cells with 6V, 500mA Power output per cell to be used to collect the light from the Light Bulb. Input Circuits: Power Source, Solar Source Output Circuit: Power Selector. General Contribution Each of the smaller circuits in our overall circuit changes the current voltage to allow the following circuits to be able to use it, or in the case of the Protection circuits this will check the voltage and current to make sure that the voltage and current is in range and will not harm anything. Performance Requirements 1. 16.8 ~ 20 W output power 2. Circuit efficiency after solar cell to the source selector is greater than 70 % 3. Get a greater than 2% overall efficiency of converting light to power 4. Batteries do not get overcharged 5. Output voltage of 120V12V 60 Hz Requirement Description Light-to-power Efficiency This is the equation we will use to calculate the efficiency of converting the light to power. (input voltage of light bulb * input current of light bulb) / (output power of light bulb) * area covered * solar cell efficiency = As of right now, we are calculating an efficiency of 3.7 % (120 V * 0.14 A) / 10.08 W * 0.25 * 0.25 = 3.7 %

With this is efficiency, battery will charge fully in about two days. Protections With the input/output circuits, this will allow the rest of the circuit to operate properly. Our charging circuit will regulates the power going into battery to prevent overcharge.

III. Verification
Testing Procedures General procedure: Plotting and measuring input and output voltages using oscilloscope and voltmeter to make sure the circuit works properly and keep the record of the data. Parts : description (test device used) Power Selector: Remove the power source and test if the circuit switches to the battery as its power source. (voltmeter) Output Protection: apply over-current and voltage to input of the output protection circuit and check the output to make sure it doesnt pass through. (voltmeter) DC-AC converter: apply DC voltage to the input of the circuit and check if the circuit produces correct AC voltage using oscilloscope. (oscilloscope) Transformer: apply AC voltage to the input of the circuit and check if the circuit produces correct AC voltage using oscilloscope. (oscilloscope) Charging Circuit: apply voltage to the input and check to see if the battery voltage increases, also use the oscilloscope to plot the voltage change. (oscilloscope) Input Protection: apply reverse, over-current and voltage to input of the input protection circuit and check the output to make sure it doesnt pass through. (voltmeter) We will test each part separately, and after connecting each smaller circuit together, we will verify that the entire circuit still operates.

Tolerance Analysis

Aspect of project revolves around the conversion of the light to power. This is taken place at the solar cell. Two major factors of power being produced are material and placement. For this we will use a reflector to collect the maximum light from the light bulb that will not block significant amount of useable light. This way we will get the maximum power being collected. We will test this by showing mathematically where the ideal spots are. In addition we will show that by moving the spots to different areas to collect maximum light shining on the solar cell without considering useable light, will significantly block useable light.

IV. Cost and Schedule

Cost Analysis Parts price Part Vhs C Camcorder Battery Super Solar Cells 0.5 V 125mA 4 pack 10W Soft White Spiral T3 Regular doorbell transformer 3701 Misc. Capacitors, resistors, inductors Total Parts Cost Labor price Assume your dream salary ($/hour) x 2.5 x hours to complete = TOTAL $ 50 /hr x 2.5 x 80 hrs/person x 2 = $ 20,000 Total Cost $ 137.38 + $ 20,000 = $ 20,137.38 137.38 Manufacturer Panasonic Sundance Solar GE Bell Quantity 1 4 1 1 Cost 20.99 51.80 (12.95 x 4) 4.49 35.10 25.00

Schedule WEEK 9/15 9/22 9/29 10/6 10/13 10/20 10/27 11/3 11/10 11/17 11/24 12/1 12/8 Michael Han Hand in Proposal, Sign up for Review Prepare for Review Charging Circuit DC-AC converter Order Parts Power Selector Transformer Input Protection Output Protection Work where it is needed/Testing Work where it is needed/Testing Mock Demo Fix errors Finish Final Paper Work where it is needed Demo Project Hand in Final Paper and Lab Notebooks