DYI Engine Generator First Steps

So I decided to take another step towards energy independence and once again it had to be DYI! I found an article in hompower magazine #42 on how to make a 12 volt engine generator. So the basic idea of of this thing is to have a small lawn mower engine a car alternator and some sort of field controller to control the 12 volt output from the alternator. Where to start? well I figure I would start with the controller first.



My long term plan is to build a small solar system you know the type with panels not planets I'll work my way up to planets later. Anyway I'm starting with the controller because I figure that I have one deep cycle battery now for my backup power for my radios, and I use a AC trickle charger to keep it topped off. So if the power ever goes out I only have the small VW solar panel to trickle charge it. So I figure if I build the charge controller first I could use it in an emergency by just hooking it up to my cars alternator. Also doing it this way I able to take my time looking for an engine and an alternator and maybe I can get it for my favorite price free.

One Red Hot Solar Lamp

So the other day I was in the office of our environmental engineer we call her the "Green Lady" and she had the coolest little green desk lamp. when I say green I mean it was the color green and environmentally green too. It was solar powered, in the base of the lamp is a solar panel with a battery box attached to it that has 4 AA rechargeable batteries. I assume it has some type of charge controller but it might not. I asked her where she got it and she said IKEA for 20 bucks. I just had to get one and try it out but you know me MR. DYI I though of some ways to make one and even found some parts to start making one. Well before I could get the design going the "Green Lady" bought me this red one for my Birthday.

It's pretty cool I'm using it right now to light my keyboard. The solar panel/battery box comes out of the base so you can set in a sunny window to charge. The box is beveled so it sits at an angle to the sun to help it receive more sun it's a real good design.

It takes awhile to charge but it does provide a few hours of light as you can seen in the picture it puts out a lot of light. I'll post up dates after I have it awhile, so far it's a winner with me.

Soldering fume extractor project

I've been doing allot of small electronics projects lately that require a fair amount of soldering. So I figured that it was about time I got a fume extractor until i saw the price. They ran any where from $36 to $400 bucks. So once again I'm going down the build it your self road. I started by looking through the junk box and I found a few parts i could use.

I needed a fan since that was basically what the project was all about, I found an old brush less ATX computer fan 12V Dc, and a old early 90's styled bag cell phone hand set car Mount to mount the fan on. I also found a computer power switch with led power on indicator lights I figured I could replace the led's with bright white led's for lights to see what I'm working on and use the switch to turn on the fan.

To mount the fan I needed to design a bracket to attach the fan to the cell phone bracket. I had a friend who is a sheet metal guy make it he soldered small tab on the bottom not sure why he didn't make it from one peace?

A little sheet metal and a few brass crews and we have a mounting bracket!

Next I mounted the power switch and the led lights on the bracket I still need to get another white led.

Now with the fan controls and lights mounted its time to work on the base and power supply.

So stay toon for the next installment of the Soldering fume extractor project!!!

Under the sun so little time (Update!)

Well I thought that my solar creation at first was working well, but it was not charging the phone battery as fast as I was discharging my solar charger. So I tried just charging the VZ 6800 phone every few weeks. This way it would have two weeks between discharges to recharge the battery in the solar charger. It work, but it only made my VZ 6800 energy independent for 6 days out of the month.




Now as for my other phone the samsung, I could charge it and that worked well, but it doesn't get used every day so it would hold a charge for about two weeks anyway. I did stumble across some good news though, when I was testing the output of the battery and the solar panel I disconnected it for two weeks and forgot to hook it back up.

What I had found out was on a vary Sunny day the panel will power the VZ 6800 with no battery attached at all in full sun. I think that in the winter months I will have to go two weeks or get more panels. In the summer or on bright days in February it will charge it with out a battery or with it. So the end result is it works it just works allot better with more sun wow imagine that?