Hi everyone! Welcome back to Cody's Lab
So right now it's 1 AM, November 14 2016.
Tonight is one of the so-called super moons.
Basically the Moon is at its full phase, and closest approach to the Earth.
So it's a few percent brighter than usual.
But still, this is the perfect opportunity to test something that I've always wanted to know and that is whether or not,
moonlight shining on a solar panel makes any sort of power.
So,
I got a little multimeter right here.
Let's hook it up, and find out.
Okay, so it looks like we're getting about 270 mV off the solar panel here.
If I let some of the light from this flashlight get on there, you see the voltage increases to 0.4 V.
Let me pull this away, so it's just the moonlight.
You get 0.270V.
Now, let's see what happens if I move this solar panel so it's no longer facing the moon.
I'll just lay it down on the ground here. That'll be fine. Okay.
Looks like 0.6 mV, basically zero.
So that means we're definitely getting something from the moon.
Excellent.
Let's see what happens if I hook it up to a bigger solar panel array.
You might not be able to see it, but up there on the roof of the shed, I have 1800 watts worth of solar panels.
Let's go tap into them and see what we get.
Now,
Oh! That was a shooting star!
That was cool!
I don't think I've ever caught one of those on camera before.
But anyway, the amount of energy that the Sun is putting out is roughly 400,000 times greater than what the moon is putting out right now.
Well, maybe 380,000 times greater.
But it's still a lot more.
I mean this is actually just reflected light, coming off the moon.
Okay, so I've unhooked the solar panels from the battery bank.
Here are the two wires.
Positive and negative.
Okay, this is just the power coming off the solar panels.
So 1.7V.
Let's see,
see if I can get some short-circuit mA out of this.
Uh, .11 mA.
And that's for a short circuit.
So, not very much amperage.
So this right here is the smallest lightbulb I could find. It's rated for 1.2V, let's see if I can power it off of this solar panel.
Okay,
That's a nothing.
Which I guess I would expect, cause it also takes .3A to power this. Let's try an LED.
Okay,
put the LED in line,
and we also get nothing. And that's probably because the voltage is just way too low.
Uh, I think this LED requires at least 3V to operate properly.
So,
What could I actually power, using this type of power arrangement?
Well, how about a digital clock?
Let's hook this up,
just like this.
Okay,
Ha! Here we go.
Using Moonpower
I've actually lit up this little clock
It's being powered from the Moon
That is awesome
So I can actually run something off the solar panels
When they've got moonshine on them
[laughs]
Still I want to see a light light up
So let's see if I can figure something out
So the first thing I thought of was
why not use a capacitor
Charge it up to the 1.2 volts
and then stick this lightbulb on there
Unfortunately the capacitor wouldn't hold the charge long enough
for it to heat up the filament of this incandescent bulb
But I still think I can make it work with the LED light
So I've set up a simple voltage booster here
In which I'm
hooking up
these capacitors in such a way that I can charge them one at a time
And increase the voltage
step by step
It's kinda cumbersome but it should work
If I can get this up above 3 volts it should light the LED
OK
Moment of truth
Let's see if it'll light up
[laughs]
For just a second
Oh my gosh
There it is moonpowered lighting
[laughs]
Oh man
that was fun
Hope you all enjoyed
I'll see you next time