LM317T Voltage Regulator with Pass Transistor

First of all, for the observant I must say that I did use a non deepcycle battery, but it was free and this project is still at the experimental stage, I'm not even sure how long the brown wooden box will last or the handheld generator or those kitchen spoons, but time will tell. This run of the river project is insanely inefficient mainly because of the half inch hose, which should really be 90 feet of 1 inch PVC, but the materials were easily acquired and installed. After I've watched this project for a while I'll more than likely upgrade the main components as they breakdown. Also it's really important to add a fuse or a low amperage breaker at one of the battery terminals simply because the odds of a mouse chewing through the wires or a tree falling over them in the next 10 years is huge. Most of these batteries can put out enough cold cranking amps to catch any log cabin on fire or create a forest fire. The hand generator only makes about 3-5 watts of hydro electricity per hour and therefore does not need a voltage regulator but is just directly hooked up to the 12v battery and functions very much like a trickle charger does. A DC to AC inverter may be hooked up to the battery terminals if you want house voltage, though I recommend attaching a switch to it in order to turn the inverter off when it's not being used in order to save power. The funny thing is that most of my electricity needs are 12vdc, including that 13watt CFL bulb so I might never hook up the ...



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7U1tsUkYEg&hl=en