Month: April 2012

So for my final for Sustainable Energy final I decided to take my Circuit Board one step further. I embedded all the LEDs in the actual board itself along with routing out channels for all the wiring then covering the wiring with grip tape. I also upgraded the LEDs to super bright LEDs to have a brighter glow. I designed my own circuit board which I embedded into the actual riser pad thus protecting it along with hiding it from sight. Trying to make it as modular as possible I created touch connections between the board and the circuit board using two copper rods that when everything is screwed together touch to make the positive and negative connections to the LEDs.

Another addition to make it modular is to add a secure molex connection from the generator to the circuit board, thus allowing the user to unplug and upgrade. The only additions that I did not have time to complete are incorporating the actual generator into the axel of the skateboard truck along, this would fix the issue of the stepper motor slipping on the wheel along with getting rid of an additional component. I hope to add this feature to Circuit Board 3.0 (coming next fall, I hope). Also video documentation will be posted in the next few days. Thank you to Jeff and ITP for all the assistance.

Inspiration:
Little Bits
Bernard Kiwia

For my Sustainable Energy final I have decided to continue work on my Circuit Board project which uses the kinetic energy of the spinning skateboard wheel to power undercarriage super bright LEDs. To improve on the beta version of the Circuit Board I am planing on embedding the LEDs into the board rather than using copper tape on the surface so its a lot more durable. Secondly I will create a housing area in the riser, which is the plastic piece between the truck and the deck, to hold the circuit board. There will be conductive metal bars embedded into the risers to pass the current from the generator to the circuit board to the LEDs. I am planing on redesigning the axel of the truck to actually include the generator as part of the axel thus reducing the number of parts. If the generator is attached to the axel itself the wheel can spin the generator directly.