I have a wind turbine project. I attached a plastic propeller to the dc motor and when i blow wind towards it i want to use the spin of the motor to light up an LED. But it doesnt light up the LED even a little bit. (I tried different color LEDs). When i measured the voltage even with the fastest mode of my drying machine it says 1V at max, is that the problem? Can i use transistors to enhance the voltage. I am very new to this topic. Any kind of helping idea is appreciated.
The LED is not going to light at 1V
You could perhaps use the motor output to turn on a transistor or MOSFET and for that to switch an external power source to the LED but that would defeat the object
Is there an Arduino involved somewhere in this project ?
i plan on using the breadboard for the circuit. Are there any tutorials on the using transistor for this idea?
What is the point of a wind turbine that uses an external power supply ?
Do you have a full description of your project ?
my project was about detecting the wind's direction and by using that info turning my dc motor propeller to that direction and then lighting up an LED with that.
How are you detecting the wind direction ?
What exactly is "that" ? If it is the power from the wind turbine then you cannot use an external power source
That's how wind is made, of course. Wind energy!
OP: what setup are you using, exactly? Photos may be helpful..
Small DC motors will definitely be able to light up an LED, if you spin it fast enough. There may be your problem, your wind turbine may simply spin too slowly to produce enough voltage.
Give the wind installation a tail and the wind will make it point into the wind.
I see you have a red LED, a red LED has a forward voltage of about 1.8 to 2 volts, so your motor will have to spin fast enough to generate at least that voltage to even start to light the LED. Also, if the motor spins faster, it could generate enough current to burn out the LED, so you should have a series current limiting resistor sized to the maximum expected voltage. What is your motor's rated voltage and speed?
Detect wind direction with a joystick.
Using an EPS foam ball on top of a looong joystick. The wind should push the foam ball in the opposite direction. That is to say, if the joystick is being pushed to the NNE, the wind is arriving from the SSW... and if the joystick indicates up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, select... it is hurricane season.
I don't see how an LED helps with direction...
Do you actually need to light an LED? The Arduino's analog input can detect a few millivolts.
You can amplify 1V with a transistor or op-amp, but you will need a power source (battery or power supply). A linear amplifier is easier with an op-amp. If you just want a "switch" to switch-on power to an LED (or something) when less than 1V is present, a transistor can do that.
There are DC-DC converters that can boost voltage at the expense of current, or vice-versa. But most of them don't work with only 1V. And you still probably wouldn't have enough energy to drive an LED.
It's easier to do the same thing with AC. This is what transformers do.
Power (energy) is calculated as Voltage x Current. You can't boost the energy from your generator. An amplifier needs another source of energy.
i find the direction with another system i just have to light up the led using the spin of dc motor at the end to show that the turbine is spinning (its what my teacher wants). Thanks a lot for the transistor thing i will try that
Use the spin of the motor to charge a battery that triggers a "spinning" state that turns on a power supply to light the LED.
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