As part of the Energy Harvesting Competition, the challenge is to “Build a module that harvests ambient power for various applications and show your module powering a project.” In this update, the Indoor Light Charged Power Supply will be powering a project and also demonstrating the Indoor Light Charged Power Supply in use as a bench top power supply for general use on low power applications. 

 The project is a CMOS oscillator based on a CD4001 quad nor gate built on a solderless breadboard.

CMOS chips are ideal candidates for energy harvesting projects due to their low power requirements. After wiring the above schematic on a solderless breadboard and hooking up the power, the circuit began to oscillate.  It is always nice when things work. :) Check out the short video below. The meter is oscillating between 2.17 volts and 0 volts.