Solar Powered Engine Based on Unijunction Transistors

Abstract

The present paper is a trial to shed further light on one of the state - of the - art applications of solar energy; that is solar engines. In this concern, the unijunction transistors were introduced as a part of the system control, where, the solar engines have broad significant and technological advantages for distributed renewable energy applications. During this paper, a detailed experimental study of the characteristics of one of the most popular 2N4870 UJTs was investigated in normal operating conditions. Also, the electrical characteristic curves of the investigated poly-silicon solar panel were plotted at different illumination levels. The design and the implementation of the solar engine control circuit as an application were carried out. Finally, the dependence of both output voltage and motor speed of the solar engine control circuit on the illumination level were investigated.