Close

What did I build? Investigation time

A project log for Lazy Killer 9000

I'm tired of flying insects and chasing after them....

bdmBDM 08/24/2014 at 14:340 Comments

Yesterday and today I broke out my favorite electronic books to try and understand the diode capacitor relationship I built.  Was my logic in use correct?  Does it have a name?   My guess is that this is a transient circuit since we have .."a sudden change in voltage introduced by an external agent...", aka Mr. Fly being electrocuted.  Book has some formulas to model this behavior which I will look into once I have POC2 up and running.

I will map the complete circuit but this is what I understand.

1.) The diode does act in the way I intended, one way current/voltage flow.  Learned it has a -0.6V drop when in series like I placed it.  Since I might be tapping off the transformer it could act as a 1/2 wave rectifier as well.

2.) The electrolytic capacitor that is inline with the diode does charge like I expected.  The closest thing I could find is it is a capacitor under forced response.  

3.) The ceramic just helps even things out a little, bypass circuit to get rid of some undesired ripple.  Also drains the electrolytic cap. since the ceramic is connect to ground.

NEW IDEA--> Maybe putting a resistor in parallel with the ceramic will help the electrolytic drain faster and give a snappier recharge picture.  Also may add a resistor before the diode to get the voltage  < 1.1 so I can switch the Arduino ADC over to 1.1 reference instead of 5V reference.  Since I have been testing with a piece of wire I have a feeling a fly will not pull as much a load as my test wire.  I could be wrong since a short is a short and as long as the short does not break then we should have the same results.

Discussions