![piezo elements piezo elements](https://www.fabian.com.mt/dynimage/homedetailed/7993/name.jpg)
Here is how you do it:ĬAUTION: CFL BULBS CONTAIN MERCURY AND OTHER POISONOUS MATERIALS WITHIN THEIR GLASS TUBES. If you are like me in that you do not have diodes lying around, have no fear! You can find perfectly good diodes inside of your old, broken CFL bulbs in your house. NOTE: If you already have your diodes, you can skip this step! Once all of the piezo elements on the heel piece are wired in parallel, solder the last piezo in the chain to one of the piezo elements on the toe piece, and continue to solder the piezos in parallel until all 14 elements are connected.
![piezo elements piezo elements](https://cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/parts/4/6/8/9/10293_01.jpg)
You can connect the piezo elements from one side of the plastic to the other by threading the wires of one of the piezo elements through the holes so that they can be soldered in parallel to a piezo on the other side. In order to prevent wires from braking off of the solder joints, use hot glue to fasten part of the wire in place so that the stress on the wires is not enacted upon the solder joint. In this way, we will be able to increase the amount of amps and consequently charge our devices faster. We can solve this issue by wiring the all the piezo elements in parallel (in other words, the positives are always soldered to each other and the negatives are always soldered to each other). We can solve this problem by creating a bridge rectifier with diodes to convert the AC power to DC power we can use.Īlthough piezo elements generate plenty of voltage, they do not generate many amps. The only issue with this, however is that we need DC, not AC in order to power our stuff. Fortunately, we can take advantage of this special property by putting piezo elements underneath our feet in such a way that every time we take a step, we are using our weight to push on the piezo electric elements- which then in turn convert that energy into electricity. Piezo electric transducers, or piezo elements, are comprised of materials such as crystals and certain ceramics that have a special property which allows them to convert physical energy into AC electricity. Essentially, the main power source that makes this project possible is something called a piezoelectric transducer (I know, its a mouthful). In order to fully appreciate the science behind this project, it is helpful to understand how it works. NOTE: If you do not like learning about really cool stuff, you can skip this step.