Update: I get sooooo little power out of my experiment that voltage over the capacitor actually goes down while I measure it! My voltmeter is a CHY 17 from ELFA. (www.elfa.se) It's DC impedance is only 10 Mohm so i'm not surprised... KreAture ----- Original Message ----- From: "Olin Lathrop" To: Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2003 2:12 PM Subject: Re: [PIC]: Anyone tried running a PIC with RF-energy ? > > I set up a 3-4 meter wire around a room, and connected another wire to > > ground. > > Then I made myself a little 4-way rectifier with 4 small-signal diodes. > I > > connected the outputs to a capacitor and the inputs to the two wires. > > > > Later I found out I needed something to connect to the capacitor, and > > decided on a push-button and a led with series resistor. After > soldering > > wires to the cap in one end, i took a bite of the other end to get the > > insulation off. I got a bit baffled because it really hurt!!! I got > > shocked! Pulling out my trusted DVM I measured 78 volts across the > > capacitor. No wonder it hurt! > > This doesn't sound right. I bet you were capacitively picking up power > line noise from your house, not RF unless you happen to be next door to a > transmitter. 78V sounds way out of line for raw voltage from an antenna > without even a resonant circuit. I used to have a crystal radio connected > to a 20 meter antenna. The strongest station was 50KW at 1.03MHz about 20 > miles away. This of course did have a resonant circuit, and the open > circuit output was a few volts. The power was sufficient to drive a pair > of headphones (the old fashioned high impedence kind) to reasonable > volume. > > > ***************************************************************** > Embed Inc, embedded system specialists in Littleton Massachusetts > (978) 742-9014, http://www.embedinc.com > > -- > http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList > mailto:piclist-unsubscribe-request@mitvma.mit.edu > -- http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList mailto:piclist-unsubscribe-request@mitvma.mit.edu