Introduction: Hand Charged Working Clock
alright so i had a flashlight that was charged manually i had an idea of making an clock out of it.
Step 1: Stuff You Need
so here is what you will need:
a manually charged flashlight
soldering iron
solder
switch (preferably but not required)
electric wire
screwdriver
general purpose tools
clock mechanism
Step 2: My Flashlight and Taking It Apart
first take apart the flashlight and remove the case leaving only the necessary parts. I found that there were four main parts oone the leds two the switch three the circuit board four the rotating arm and charger etc i decided not to mess with that part because it already had what i needed same with the circuit board. after looking at the parts i saw that it gave off 3.6v and would probably go up to around 5v if i was riding a bike at a normal speed which is right in the ipods butter zone of tolerances (i'm not sure about this but when testing it with the light the faster i spun the arm the more light which is expected so if i was riding a bike i assume that it would go up even more please tell me if im wrong and i would help out a lot later in this project)
Step 3: A New Switch
the switch i came with worked but was permanently on the body so i desoldered it and put a new switch i had on it it was a basic switch i had you could buy one for like 99c at the shack just solder it on like any other switch and your done with that.
Step 4: No More Light
so at this point its still a flashlight and isn't powering a clock unless you already made a solar clock so its time to remove the leds it was relatively easy all you have to do is melt the solder and pull away the wire thats it.
Step 5: The Old Clock
i found an old pocketwatch that still worked and all i had to do was remove the case and take the mechanism i did reuse the plastic face on my new clock you'll see once i get there.
Step 6: The Clock
what i did was use an old piece of cardboard that was gonna be thrown away and used it as the base punch a hole in the center put the mechanism in
Step 7: Decorating
i spent like an hour just picking random stuff to be the numbers you can do whatever you want
Step 8: Combining the Two Parts
i soldered the ends onto the pickups and it started working right away i tested with an led earlier in the week and estimating you will need to crank it for 30 seconds every 9-10 hours before it starts to slow down. and thats it combining two projects into one!
Participated in the
Green Tech Contest