Wiring Help Desperately needed
Ok, here is a problem which has me completely befuddled. I'm really hoping one of you with lots of electronics experience can help me out here.
First of all, here's the diagram (switch and speaker removed for simplicity); saber is running off of four AAA's.
http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u...n/Untitled.png
I am using the MOSFET rather than the typical TIP42 transistor because the "source" to "drain" resistance is so much less; with the TIP42 I was getting a voltage drop of ~2V; plus the transistor was getting quite hot. The resisters are necessary for it to run properly. This part of the circuit I was helped with by a friend at work (as I didn't even know what a MOSFET is), but he is unavailable to help me for a while.
The problem I'm having is runtime; you can audibly hear the saber running down. It seldom lasts more than a few minutes, and often less; then the sound gets so garbled it's awful.
This makes no sense to me, since the batteries I'm using are rechargeables with 850 mAh; to try to solve the issue, I brought down the current being fed to the LED by the driver to ~720 mA, so the saber should last around an hour... but it doesn't.
Does anyone have any ideas?
Thanks so much
Luke