perestroika
@perestroika@slrpnk.net
- Comment on Questions on how to connect a PC to a washing machine (USB→TTL serial) 2 weeks ago:
Note: another really common baud rate is 9600, 8, 1.
- Comment on Questions on how to connect a PC to a washing machine (USB→TTL serial) 2 weeks ago:
You don’t need to connect the 5V pins. Otherwise it seems sound.
- Comment on Wind/solar motorcycle [with 50 km solar/wind range] looks like an April Fools' joke ... but it's legit 2 weeks ago:
I would think the drag is considerable.
I would also worry about stability in a strong side wind.
As a result, I would not like to ride the 2-wheeled version in strong side wind. The 3-wheeled version looks OK, but also suffers from drag.
Besides, to generate power from wind while parking, you would have to choose your parking direction. But you can’t always choose the parking direction - location dictates it often. That kind of a wind generator on a vehicle looks severely half-assed. They should have though two steps ahead.
- Comment on Flow Battery Research Collective: Building an Open-Source Battery for Stationary Storage (FOSDEM 2025) 2 months ago:
Nice project, I hope they arrive at good recipes. :)
- Comment on This is the first silent home wind turbine that destroys solar panels - 1500 kWh of free electricity 2 months ago:
The article triggers my hype meter, which is a bad thing if the product actualy delivers what it claims.
The design is new and looks neat, so I searched for an article with more information, and found this:
They do firmly claim a very high energy extraction rate:
Today the company officially introduced its Liam F1 Urban Wind Turbine, which is said to have an energy yield that is “80 percent of the maximum that is theoretically feasible.” That’s quite the assertion, given that most conventional wind turbines average around 25 to 50 percent.
The downside is a rotor with great surface area, and thus mass. It doesn’t weigh 20 kilograms like a bladed 1.5 meter turbine might be expected to weigh, it weighs 75 kilos.
The 75-kg (165-lb) 1.5-meter (5-ft)-wide Liam obviously doesn’t look much like a typical turbine. It draws on the form of the nautilus shell, and the screw pump invented by ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes of Syracuse.
For now, sadly, the cost is ridiculous. But I guess they need to recover their development cost somehow, and the manufacturing cost is considerably higher than with bladed turbines.
Although no price was given in today’s announcement, a previous posting on the company website puts it at €3,999 (about US$5,450).
- Comment on Will solar panels overrun farmland? The two are more likely to coexist. 2 months ago:
Indeed, vertical solar panels are fully compatible with farming. :) And it’s also smart to position them north-south, to get on the market on morning and evening hours - because midday is already “crowded” by conventional solar parks.
Also, vertical panels are more resistant to hail.
- Comment on First sodium battery urban e-bike offers 45-mile range and operates in cold weather without capacity loss 3 months ago:
A big advantage of its sodium cells is also the fact that they can retain more than 92% of their capacity even when operating at -20°C (-4 Fahrenheit) and discharging at those freezing temps.
That is very promising to hear. My current vehicle, which uses first-generation lithium batteries (made on 2011), loses almost half of its range at that temperature, and that is before heating.
- Comment on Homebrew battery 3 months ago:
Nice to know. :)
The comment from the reader John Beech (an old radio amateur) at the bottom is probably of greater practical value: he describes how he developed DIY cells to the point of running a 2 W radio.
Another way to build DIY batteries is using the iron-air chemical combination. A decent collection of recipes can be found here, using filter cartridges of activated carbon as cathodes and rebar wrapped in steel wool as anodes.
- Comment on Trump Says He Wants No Wind Turbines Built During Administration 3 months ago:
Some gusses:
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Vanity and spite. After all, he’s not emotionally mature.
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With some probability, he’s seeking attention from his supporters and needs to satisfy lobbyists who bought and propagandized his way to power. He has to deliver them goods. This is how he shows that he intends to deliver the goods… that he actually cannot deliver without changing the constitutional order very much.
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Maybe he wants to test the mettle of the terrible Renewable Industries Complex - an industry very prone to organizing coups and hiring assassins. If I were him, I’d consider twice, all the people in the solar business that I know have been extremely menacing. ;P ;P ;P
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- Comment on Dark Doldrums Overshadow Europe’s Energy Markets | Periods of low sun and wind, a weather pattern known as a Dunkelflaute, can increase electricity prices and stoke political tensions. 3 months ago:
It seems that weather patterns lasting longer is part of the new climate pattern.
- Comment on Sol-Ark manufacturer reportedly disables all Deye inverters in the US 5 months ago:
- Comment on Sol-Ark manufacturer reportedly disables all Deye inverters in the US 5 months ago:
My preference has become Maximum Solar. They work well enough with button and LCD control.
I reprogram them twice a year when transitioning between summer modes (hot, energy surplus, preserve batteries by not charging them fully) and winter modes (cold, energy deficit, fill batteries to the maximum). I’ve thought about automating that, but didn’t bother.
- Comment on Sol-Ark manufacturer reportedly disables all Deye inverters in the US 5 months ago:
I never let my energy devices onto the Internet. The house controller - a Raspberry Pi - is allowed when I wire it to the router using an ethernet cable.
If I worjed at the company which did the cyberattack, I would fear both civil liability and prosecution.
- Comment on Howto build 8-bit breadboard computer 5 months ago:
Very very impressive. :)
- Comment on Vertical solar panels help farmers produce both energy and crops 5 months ago:
Machinery comes is varying width. I would guess a farmer needs to decide at some point - is the priority using a 10-meter wide tool, or is it OK to settle with a 6-meter tool, or even a smaller one.
Basing on that, they’ll decide what the clearance between rows of panels should be. From an energy installation viewpoint, the shadow of one row should not cover another row during normal operating conditions. Assuming sun at 30 degrees elevation (“September on latitude 60”), the shadow of a fence that’s 1.2 meters tall will be about 1.75 * 1.2 = 2.1 m long. So from an energy generation viewpoint, one can pack things more densely than makes sense for farming.
- Comment on Solar panels between railway tracks? 5 months ago:
Also, costing €623,000 over three years sounds rather expensive for just 100m
It’s hugely expensive, but I expect most of the cost to be in the wagon that lays panels down and picks them up.
I doubt if this project will “fly”, however. A totally horizontal solar panel at ground level is a far cry from producing energy efficiently.