The solar irrigation system has now been installed and calibrated. The water is running in the poly tunnel - rain water pumped with solar energy!
I was just reading about river simple’s hydrogen car - a really excellent concept. Not only is it a breakthrough in technology (50% efficient at recovering energy lost through braking), it’s a breakthrough in car ownership.
Their motto is ’sustainable mobility’, and this is achieved by leasing the cars rather than selling them. This puts the focus on long life and low running costs, both positive things when it comes to sustainability.
Finally, the whole car is an open source/open hardware project! So people are free to build and modify their own versions - much like our own projects here at openrenewables.org.uk
Check out the latest update to the wiki: a DIY solar rainbow maker! For £10 you can get everything you need to build a cool solar powered rainbow maker. It works by collecting energy from the sun and using it to turn around a lead glass crystal. When you the sun shines you get cool rainbows moving round the room!
I’m excited, pleased and proud to announce that I’ve been awarded money from UnLtd!
The money will go to pay for the development of the modular bike charge controller and the open charge controller project, which will make it easier for us DIY green hackers to create renewable energy systems.
I’ve been trying to make sense of all the different options for measuring current in a circuit. I’ve started a page on the wiki here.
I did a full test of the solar irrigation project yesterday. Everything worked well apart from the voltage sensing. This was easily fixed with a different sized resistor. Now we’re just waiting for the plumbing to be fixed and we can install!
We had a launch of the bike cinema, and I’m pleased to say it was all working after the Glastonbury blowup. The system is more robust now and ready for use in the cafe!
At Glastonbury, the bike cinema got damaged. We’re not sure how it happened, but I found the battery isolation switch in the ‘open’ position. The battery acts as a voltage regulator, and when out of the circuit there is nothing to stop dangerous voltages (> 16V) destroying the LCD, sound, DVD or microcontroller inside.
We accepted half responsibility each, and I’ve repaired the damage and also designed and installed an over voltage crowbar circuit (with fuse) before any of the electronics.
The system is now fully operational and even more robust than it was before.
I visited climate camp a few weeks ago, and it was a great inspiration. Met a lot of people and checked out quite a few bike powered setups. It was a great opportunity for me to ask “what would make this work better”, or “do you have any problems that could be solved with electronics”. Some of the suggestions were:
- visual feedback of power in/out
- some idea about how long you’ve got left on your battery
- cheaper/self build charge controller
I met Patrick from Bicyology, who was very keen to collaborate and help build an open/DIY bike charge controller.
I’ve started a new page on the wiki, and it seems an ideal step on the way to the fully fledged open charge controller.
press extract and photo here.
