The Roots of Vortex Electrica (VE)

Assalamualaikum guys....... Here I'm providing for a perspective article on how each of the members of this blog felt about this whole thing.

VE started out as two students (me and beautifulmind) started having discussions of the on-goings of the Electrical Engineering Curriculum, which in our opinion lacks project based approach. We were 2nd year students at that time and no EE projects were given by the lecturers, who also in my opinion sees us as incapable and unambitious as the ones they see prevalent among Malaysian students (at least most of them do).

Well it's time we prove that we're not of that breed. So when a lecturer, who was in charge of Electrical Machines, gave us an assignment on taking specs of a motor and study it, we decided that's it, we're building one. So we told the lecturer, and he gave an incredulous look, but then said, "Well if you CAN do it, then that is the best thing we all can do".

Result? There's the picture of the motor on the right side of this blog page.
This is why the logo of this club is in the form of an armature of a motor, our debut project which contributed to the origin of this club.


So, two years already, 3 major projects have been done, all in physical form, no softcopy, simulations or paperwork crap included. Excluding our projects which are self-driven, which are countless, we headed to newer dimensions of practical electronics, and that, my friends, needs the interest and zeal to realize.

Now for the big question: Why this blog? The way I looked at it, this is a place to put in projects done the Malaysian way; this is because being Malaysians means limitations in investments and resources due to the public perception in stuff like these, where the Malaysian mentality is like: If you're smart, you do medicine. Otherwise there is no future out there for you.

Not all of us can bear to invest too much in electronics projects, which tend to be demanding of MONEY. So this blog discusses the way to get through projects and spending a lot less than the ones used by the 'net users, which is like: Buy. Assemble. Test. This blog endorses the idea of Electronics: The Malaysian Way, as I see it.

We're all tight up on schedule due to being final year students, and whatnot our thesis titles are among the ones rated 'very difficult/challenging', supervised by one of the most respected and strict Professors in the department. So in time, perhaps when things start to fall into place, there will be more articles, insyaAllah.

THE BLOOD STILL WHIRLS A VORTEX IN OUR VEINS.

Get your own homemade rechargeable battery pack!

For electronics hobbyists, money has always been one of the most demanding constraint, and so every little improvision will save a lot of money. In this article, I’ll demonstrate a simple and VERY money-saving approach to obtain your own rechargeable battery pack. These battery packs power my DIY RC battle tank, The Howitzer, which will be featured in future articles, Insya-Allah.

First, scrounge on every source of rechargeable batteries you can get, for instance cellphone batteries from your family’s broken cellphones, broken mp3 players, broken PDAs, any device that needs charging. Also, you can buy cellphone batteries from very old models like the Nokia 3310.




The cellphone also contains excellent DIY stuff that can be hacked like the LCD panels, small motors for vibration, and others for your use! So don’t throw them away first, they’ll be useful for future projects.
Here are the batteries in one place:


Note that the second battery from the left is a PDA battery, and the rest are cellphone batteries.
I’ve soldered the terminals with red (as the positive terminal) and black (as the negative terminal).
Then, assemble the batteries according to your preference. Mine’s like this:


You can use plastic panels to build the casing if you like, but I prefer it to be simple so I used electrical tape, which is quite strong and durable.
As for the recharging, use any extra battery chargers that you have (I had a lot of it!)


Just dissect the charger from its plug, and solder new pins so that it can be plugged into the new battery pack. The basic rule is that the positive terminal of the charger should be connected to the positive terminal of the battery, and so for the negative terminal, while charging.
I always had people from the ‘net warning about the battery might explode if we recharge it ourselves, but I had been doing the things I did with around 20 of them, and none ever did. Just to be safe, you might want to cover it with a protective casing so that IF it does explode, the casing will take the load.
One tip I discovered: A weak battery can be 'recrystallized' by reverse charging it for a few hours to restore some of the battery electrolytes. To be safe, put some protection in case the battery leaks or ruptures when doing so. I take absolutely NO responsibility for any accidents which might happen.

That’s it! A 4.5V rechargeable battery pack costs around RM70 here, but you can build one yourself virtually for free! And what’s even better is that you can customize your battery pack design to fit your prototypes!

Another thing to bear in mind: It is okay to connect different types of batteries in series, because as long as each battery is delivering their own share of power, it should be okay, except if one of the batteries run out of power to be delivered, then you need to recharge it so that it doesn’t reverse-charge itself (a phenomenon inherent to batteries; it reverses its polarity when it runs out of power. Beware that it might explode if ignored) so you need to continually monitor each battery from time to time.

That’s all, see ya soon!