Make do and mend.

I spend a lot time looking at my doormat. My chair/computer chair looks straight down our 18 ft hallway towards the front door.


There was something bugging me about it. It kinda just sat there, doing it's doormat thing. I've watched it doing that. Door opens, people walk in. People walk out, open the door. Heck, some have been known to wipe their feet on it. Teenagers bounce on it, dance on it.......


Stomp, stomp, stomp. Always across the doormat. It's heck of a rough existence. There was something wrong about that. It niggled me. It's probably the most used thing in the house.


Then it hit me. I have an outside light that's solar powered. As usual when I buy something cheap and cheerful like that, I ripped it apart to see how it works. Nothing unexpected. Solar panel trickle feeds power to a couple of rechargeable 'AA' batteries during the day. Not very successfully. It is northern Britain. At night,  a simple proximity sensor detects something nearby and switches it on for a couple of minutes.


Bear with me here.


Coincidently, I'd been sketching a design for a simple foot powered lathe. Nothing sparkling - got the idea from  looking at an old foot powered Singer sewing machine. Also coincidently, some slovenly bugger had chucked over my garden fence a rather battered wind-up lamp.


I'd repaired it, but there was no handle, and it was a really obscure remarkably big fitting for the handle. It would probably cost  more than the lamp to make one, so it's ended up in my 'bits box'. Like the solar light, the principle is straight forward. A couple of 'AA'' 's powered by a handle, that winds a little electric motor, the sort you'd find in a hand-fan. Only it works in reverse. Wind the handle, turns the motor, output is AC (alternating current) the output is shoved through a simple capacitor-four-diode rectifier bridge smoother to produce DC (direct current) that charges the batteries.


See where I'm going here? 


Kerching! So. A simple bellows contraption under the doormat operates a spring thingie that rotates a shaft on the motor. The output is smoothed (rectified) and fed to the outside light to supplement the solar power.


Ah, those of you who know a little electronics. What happens on the upswing of the 'bellows'? Not telling you.


But a few tweaks and cross connections I hope to trickle feed a mobile phone, and I'm going to steam-punk (for the hell of it) the remains of the lamp, and stick it on the other side of the door. 


Good, eh?