Home Motor drivers Solar engines Type 1 (voltage) Zener-based FLED-based Mazibug3 1381-based "Miller" 1381 GBSE MicroPower VTSE DSSSE Chloroplast Vx2SE Type 2 (time) Type 3 (charge rate) Nocturnal Sensors Complete robots Misc. circuits   The BEAM Circuits Collection is a BEAM Reference Library site.		Type 1 (voltage controlled) Solar Engines A whole list of 'em Type 1 (voltage controlled) solar engines, are by far the predominant form you'll see. They are easy to build, and provide a fairly high level of efficiency. In the following sections, I attempt to describe all the type 1 solar engine designs that I've stumbled across. Each of these sections includes a text description, along with circuit diagram(s), and in some cases a PCB layout. Zener-based This design uses a Zener diode to determine the voltage trip level. Simple variants of this design use LEDs or plain old diodes in series to accomplish the same thing. FLED-based This design uses a flashing LED to determine the solar engine's voltage trip level. 1381-based Two simple solar engine designs using a 1381* voltage discriminator. The "Miller engine" This is a slightly more-sophisticated design based on a 1381* voltage discriminator. GBSE The "Gate Boost Solar Engine" is a new (6/2002) Wilf Rigter 1381-based design. This uses an internal voltage doubler to turn on a FET more efficiently. "MicroPower" Ken Huntington's fairly complex, but very efficient "micropower" solar engine design. No 1381s or ICs needed. VTSE The "Variable Threshold Solar Engine" is Wilf Rigter's 1381-based design -- with a variable "trip" threshold. DSSSE The dual slope sensing SE is another Wilf Rigter design; this SE is optimized for 'bots with a low-power standby mode. "Chloroplast" These designs are based on the Motorola MC34164-* micro power undervoltage sensing ICs. They're pretty efficient, work at higher voltages than most solar engines, and can provide voltages for other logic circuits (say, a microprocessor). This page hosts the original Chloroplast by Craig Maynard, as well as some Chloroplast variants by Wilf Rigter. Vx2SE This is Wilf Rigter's voltage-doubling solar engine design; very useful for loads that require higher voltage (like those "super-bright" LEDs).   For more information... Ian Bernstein of "BEAM-Online" fame has a writeup on 1381-based solar engines here, and a tutorial on how to free-form this kind of circuit here.
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