Week 4 - The Design Comes Together

         Week 4 Updates - All the components needed as of now have been ordered and some of them have also been received. The do-it-yourself shake flashlight arrived recently and we have been tinkering with it for a while. We have conducted many tests on it to determine if this magnet-coil system is able to provide enough power to charge a cell phone. After dissembling the shake flashlight, we used a multi-meter to determine several voltage and current values that we need to charge a cell phone. As of now, the magnetic-coil system is able to provide a constant current of .632 Amps which is just enough to charge a cell phone battery. As for the design aspect of the whole project, a new idea was finally incorporated into the design. We finally decided and bought a AA battery powered emergency cell phone charger that should we will use to charge the phone. The basic concept is that the magnet coil system will provide electricity to charge two AA NiMH rechargeable batteries that will be placed into the emergency cell phone charge which will then be able to charge the phone.

A few links that helped us inspire these ideas can be found below.

http://www.ehow.com/way_5371860_diy-shake-flashlight.html

http://laserpointerforums.com/f60/diy-10-solar-cell-phone-charger-76550.html

The Shake Flashlight whose design we are basing the cellphone charger on



The main components of the shakeflashlight: the magnet and coil