Julian Straub

creations and thoughts

Recent posts

Apr 14, 2020
Stand-alone Arduino EEPROM Voltage Logger The arduino voltage logger from the previous post worked by directly sending all voltage values to a computer for logging. This way storage is virtually limitless.…
Apr 12, 2020
Harvesting Light III - Iterations on the Blinker In a previous post about harvesting light with a charge pump, I described my first iteration on that classic circuit.…
Apr 11, 2020
Free-forming Solar Harvesters After various breadboard experiments with energy harvesters, I started free-forming them as can be seen in the picture below: Free forming a circuit is an art in itself to me, because you are creating a shapable 3D artifact that is constrained by the functionality (the circuit).…
Apr 5, 2020
Voltage Sources Creating a stable voltage of known quantity from a some a given input voltage (from a battery, or a solar cell for example) is a common problem.…
Apr 4, 2020
Arduino Voltage Logger In order to log the discharge and charge curves of capacitors and batteries in the light harvesting devices, I programmed an Arduino Nano to be able to log the voltage on one of the ADC pins out through the serial port.…
Mar 28, 2020
Energy Storage for Harvesters Energy storage is an important topic for solar-powered devices such as explored in the harvesting light series. The two main vehicles for energy storage are (super) capacitors and lithium ion batteries.…
Mar 21, 2020
Harvesting Light II - Blinker with Charge Pump Building the pretty straight forward light harvester described in a previous post, I learned that that design is somewhat passive: the harvester just charges the whole day and then discharges for 1-2h (depending on the capacitor) once it gets dark.…
Mar 15, 2020
Sensing Light Sensing the amount of light falling on a surface is at the core of how any more advanced light sensors such as human or animal eyes function.…
Mar 14, 2020
Programming Arduino In C In this post, I describe how to program an Arduino straight up in C using a simple Makefile. Arduino microcontroller boards like the Arduino Uno or the Arduino Nano are great for tinkering, since they come with all the necessary circuitry to get started right away.…
Mar 11, 2020
Creating Light I Light is one of the most fundamental parts of our experience of the world. Without it our main sensor, our eyes, would not function.…