I thought I’d mention this because it is really cool! An LED flashlight was built using an old tic-tac box and a few other components. You basically shake the tic-tac for 60 seconds which is enough to power the LED. As you shake the tic-tac, the rare earth magnet inside the coil (the red thing) moves up and down and cuts the coils of the wire. This creates an AC current. However the LED needs a DC current, so a simple rectifier is built using 4 Diodes. This will ‘convert’ the AC current to a DC current which will then charge the rechargeable battery. The switch can then be used to turn on the LED. You can try it yourself, the instructables article gives you all the details, and a simple schematic for the rectifier can be found here. There isn’t anything that you couldn’t find in your local electronics shop (or RadioShack for you Americans)
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It’s amazing how far LED Technology has come. The recent surge in ultra bright LED’s has resulted in an abundence of LED lighting hittin the market, only need to look at shops like http://www.ledlightingshop.co.uk to see that this tech is the future of lighting. Some of these new LED’s so bright they can blind you