Solar Light - Maker Factory ELECTRONICS EXPERIMENTS BOX Manual

2.9 Solar light

Circuit 23: Simple solar light
Setup information
Install the two diodes as shown in Fig. 2.23. Then install the resistor. Finally connect the solar cell.
Experiment
If everything is wired correctly, the red LED remains dark for as long as no light falls on the solar cell. For
example, the solar cell could be placed in a south window. The circuit itself could be placed in the base-
ment or somewhere in a room without windows. There it can tell you whether it is daytime and that the
sun is shining. This circuit demonstrates how easy it is to get free solar power. You could also use this cir-
cuit to power a small electronic device (pocket radio, mp3 player).
The circuit diagram for this experiment is shown in Chap. 3, Fig. 3.23.
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Components required:
1 x solar cell, 1 x red LED,
1 x BAT85 Schottky diode,
1 x 220 Ω resistor,
1 x breadboard
Fig. 2.23: Simple solar light