Hi, my name is Lee Olson from Marshfield, Wisconsin USA. I’m a 49-year-old Computer Technician for a School District with hobbies in Electronics, Computers, Amateur Radio and Fishing. You can email me at mr.olson@charter.net. I got started in BEAM in November of 2003. I bought a FRED kit from http://home.ust.hk/~bcandyp/solar-kit.html for $9.

FRED

Here is my finished FRED. The heat shrink tubing on the motor shafts did not get very good traction. I cut some small pieces of small size silicone Model Airplane fuel line tubing and pushed it over the heat shrink. Wow, FRED has traction now. I had to move the motors to the back of the capacitor because he wanted to flip over. The first time I showed it to some friends at an Amateur Radio Club meeting one of them asked “ What makes that little wire in the front pop up like that.” I replied, “Traction.”

Mini-Solar Roller

My local Radio Shack Store just had these I/R remote control cars for $5. I had to buy a couple. I do my testing indoors with a 75 watt Flood Lamp because during the winter months we do not get very many sunny days. I did not have to poke the FLED out through the windshield but it lets the capacitor charge up a little higher before firing. The capacitor is a 0.047F.

LCD Name Badge

I found this LCD Name Badge circuit designed by Wilf Rigter (Thanks Wilf) using a 74HC240 IC. Although the LCD has 6 digits I only needed to use 4 for my name and my Amateur Radio Call Sign. That is why I glued the Solar Cell to the front. It helps protect the Solar Cell. Then I added a magnetic clip from an old plastic Name Tag to the back. My last name of Olson would have worked too. The circuit and directions are at http://www.geocities.com/leemon1/Bots/LCD/lcdname.htm .I added a 1.5 Farad capacitor to get charged up in good light so it would work. Sometimes the display would hang when turning on in a dim light and going to a brighter area so I added the on-off switch to use as a reset switch.

Next is a SYMET and a walker.