The final video I captured at the Open Hardware Summit was this interesting talk by Mark Norton. Mark is heading up the steam engine project of the Global Village Construction Set. Open-sourcing purely mechanical projects like engines is something which I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, so this talk was really exciting to me.
The idea, in the context of the GVCS, is to use this steam engine as a prime mover for a number of other tools, including electrical generators and pumps. Because of it’s simplicity, and the fact that it can be powered by pretty much anything that makes enough heat to boil water, it’s a very useful and versatile source of power. It’s also designed to be scalable: multiple single-cylinder engines can be mated via a common crankshaft to increase power output, so as to adapt to varying requirements.
NEW PRODUCT – 12V EL wire/tape inverter. This is an equivalent inverter to our 2xAA type, except it is a brick that takes 12V input instead of 2 AA batteries. This means its good for ‘fixed’ installations since you can just plug it into a 12V wall adapter. It’s also good for portable projects where you want to have a big battery pack like a 8xAA holder which will last 4-5 times longer than just 2xAA’s. This inverter can drive up to 250 cm of high-brightness EL wire or 60 cm of EL tape.
Power’s out due to tropical storm Irene, but there’s still sunlight out. So, I’m using a solar panel, an Adafruit adjustable breadboard power supply, and a USB hub to power my Sprint Overdrive.
NEW PRODUCT – 4-pin AT/ATX/IDE power cable. For big projects, with big power needs, an AT or ATX power supply is a handy place to grab 5V or 12VDC. Only problem is that these supplies have connectors that only plug into motherboards or hard drives. That’s where this cable comes in. It has a matching 4-pin molex connector to the hard drive/CD-ROM power cables that come out of a power supply so you can use this to grab 5V or 12V. Heck, you can even use this cable while your computer is powered, say to decorate your hard drive with LEDs or VFD/LCD displays, etc.
Note that in some older computer power supplies, the 12V supply is ‘unstable’ unless there’s a lot of current draw on the 5V line. In these cases, if you need to use the 12V line without also loading the 5V line, you can solder a 10 ohm 10 Watt power resistor between ground and 5V to load it enough to stabilize the 12V line.
NEW PRODUCT – Large 6V 3.7W Solar Panel. Harness even more power from the sun with this nice big solar panel. We had these custom made for us when customers let us know they needed more than what our 2W panel could provide. This panel is a 12-cell (6V) assembly mounted onto a fiberglass PCB and covered with PET plastic which protects the cells without reducing efficiency. The back has two soldering spots to easily connect and is conformal coated. The panel is thus fairly strong and lightweight but isn’t completely waterproof (since you’ll have the exposed soldering on the back. However if you place this in a box or mount it so the back is encased, it’ll be just fine.
We connected this up to our solar lipo charger and got over 550 mA to charge the battery with on a fairly sunny NYC day.
Thanks to this nice tutorial http://ladyada.net/make/solarlogger/ I’ve done a substantial upgrade! Now I can monitor and save the following data:
Voltage: Panel, Battery, Load
Current: Panel and soon battery (waiting on parts)
Temperature: battery, in case it gets too hot.
Adjustable LM317-based power supplies are an easy way to get custom voltages for your benchtop. Also check out the MIC2941 (used in our breadboard power supply http://www.adafruit.com/products/184) which has some nice benefits such as ultra-low dropout, 1.25A current output and a separate biasing pin. Its nearly a drop in replacement for the LM317 – albeit a little more expensive.
UPDATED PRODUCT – 5V 2A (2000mA) switching power supply – UL Listed. We’ve updated this adapter to be higher quality – its now UL listed! It now comes with the more common 2.1mm DC jack. Perfect for use with our LED strips, pixels, chumby hacker boards, or any other project that requires 5V DC and a bunch of current. All at the same price as before.
This is a work in progress project which uses a Solar charging MintyBoost to power an Arduino with a Proto Screw Shield on it. Attached is a 2X16 LCD using the I2C Backpack, a DHT22 Temperature and Humidity Sensor, a Waterproof DS18B20 Sensor and a 5V analog PH Probe/Adapter.
Social Bicycles released their revamped design for their bike sharing platform. It is a “GPS-enabled bike that you can find and unlock using your mobile phone.” What we like about it is that it enables companies, organizations and institutions of any size to easily create and manage their own bike share program. We think it also provides a great user experience.
The GPS locator and lock are powered by a battery system which is in turn powered by a dynamo and our 2 Watt solar panel. i.e. if the bike isn’t in motion for several days, the battery is going to stay powered up and transmitting its location.
Medium 6V 2W Solar panel 2.0 Watt. These panels come to us from Voltaic Systems, makers of fine solar-powered bags and packs. These are waterproof, scratch resistant, and UV resistant. They use a high efficiency monocrystalline cell. They output 6V at 330 mA via 3.5mm x 1.3mm DC jack connector. The substrate is an aluminum / plastic composite, specifically designed to be strong and lightweight. They can easily stand up to typical outdoor use including being dropped and leaned on. They’re very high quality and suggested for projects that will be exposed to the outdoors.
New! These now comes with 4 plastic mounting screws which makes it easy to attach the panel, even to fabric!
We met Chris Jefferies a few weeks back at Maker Faire. Turns out he is using our small solar panels to do something we’ve been interested in for a while. Chris is building wireless sensor networks using open source software and hardware that could be used in a variety of applications like air quality or home energy monitoring. It looks like he was inspired by Tweetawatt and is using xBee and ASUS wifi for communication in conjunction with Pachube for data display.
Ever wondered about how a Voltaic solar panel is constructed? Here’s a short video showing the the composition of the panel and why its so strong.
Medium 6V 2W Solar panel 2.0 Watt. These panels come to us from Voltaic Systems, makers of fine solar-powered bags and packs. These are waterproof, scratch resistant, and UV resistant. They use a high efficiency monocrystalline cell. They output 6V at 330 mA via 3.5mm x 1.3mm DC jack connector. The substrate is an aluminum / plastic composite, specifically designed to be strong and lightweight. They can easily stand up to typical outdoor use including being dropped and leaned on. They’re very high quality and suggested for projects that will be exposed to the outdoors.
New! These now comes with 4 plastic mounting screws which makes it easy to attach the panel, even to fabric!
Eric Walstad built this awesome off-grid weather station, using a netbook, a 135W solar cell, a desktop weather station, custom hardware, and an Adafruit adjustable breadboard power supply. He also incorporated a webcam for good measure. Here’s a timelapse movie of his cabin being built, created using custom software to combine stills from the webcam and data from the weather station. Check it out:
UPDATED PRODUCT! Medium 6V 2W Solar panel 2.0 Watt. These panels come to us from Voltaic Systems, makers of fine solar-powered bags and packs. These are waterproof, scratch resistant, and UV resistant. They use a high efficiency monocrystalline cell. They output 6V at 330 mA via 3.5mm x 1.3mm DC jack connector. The substrate is an aluminum / plastic composite, specifically designed to be strong and lightweight. They can easily stand up to typical outdoor use including being dropped and leaned on. They’re very high quality and suggested for projects that will be exposed to the outdoors.
New! These now comes with 4 plastic mounting screws which makes it easy to attach the panel, even to fabric!
This enclosure is designed to bolt to a heat sink, not pictured here. The square opening is for access to the heat sink so that the voltage regulator can be bolted directly to the heat sink. You may want to drill out/tap some of these holes [Adafruit power supply]
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