Collaborate Disseminate
[Punxatawny Phil]’s prognostications aside, winter isn’t over up here in the Northern Hemisphere, and the snow keeps falling. If you’re sick of shoveling the driveway and the walk and you …read more Continue reading Fail of the Week: The Little Remote-Controlled Snowblower That Couldn’t
If you’ve got a so-called uninterruptible power supply (UPS) on your system, you’re probably painfully aware that the “uninterruptible” part has some pretty serious limits. Most consumer units are designed …read more Continue reading Mods Turn Junk UPS into a Long-Endurance Beast
Ever on the lookout for creative applications for tech, [Andres Leon] built a solar powered battery system to keep his Christmas lights shining. It worked, but — pushing for innovation — it is now capable of so much more.
The shorthand of this system is two, 100 amp-hour, deep-cycle AGM batteries charged by four, 100 W solar panels mounted on an adjustable angle wood frame. Once back at the drawing board, however, [Leon] wanted to be able track real-time statistics of power collected, stored and discharged, and the ability to control it remotely. So, he introduced a Raspberry Pi running …read more
