Hello again,
Well, I managed to improve my contraption by several levels of magnitude.
I have moved the shaft to horizontal position, got real bearing assemblies, and changed my rotor to be more sturdy (four clear plastic discs from blank CD-R cases glued together
), as well as put more powerful magnets (Electronics Goldmine G16370, $0.40 each) which I found to be one of the key elements. My older smaller magnets (see pictures above) did not seem sufficient enough - with the new ones rotor requires just a gentle push to start.
I still think my coil is wound in a wrong way (damn you right-handers World) so it might have to unwind and wind again (sigh). Though it still works so what gives?
I've hooked a mA meter to the circuit and a 10 ohm resistor to the secondary/charging output, so I can fine tune the rheostat and transistor base voltage to lowest current usage from the primary.
Amazingly enough this assembly can draw as low as 50mA (or even less) which with the 8x1.2V 2300mAh batteries I use to test with means I can run hours/days?
This has pretty much encouraged me (by a number of folds) to proceed into next stages and acquire a more serious quantity of magnet wire and wind more coils
