Why would you want to know your latitude? If you have solar panels, you can use your latitude to know how much to tilt your solar panel to absorb the most direct sunlight.
Archive for the ‘energy’ Category
Lock up your solar panels to prevent theft
Made a quick rocket stove with bricks. Put a Peltier cooler on the back and got a fire going. Measured the current, volts, and watts produced from a single Peltier cooler. A cooling fan and aluminum heatsink with a 12V portable battery helped.
Peltier Cooler (also called TEC or Thermo Electric Cooler) - resting against a hot brick
Video of experiment…
A 12V battery is getting low and needs some wind to charge up. The wind turbine outside faithfully stands watch high above the ground, waiting for a chance to spin in the wind.
Review of a 12V splitter. This is also called a 3-way cigarette lighter adapter .
12V adapter-splitter review
This adapter plugs into a single 12V battery outlet and splits it into three outlets. Could be used to power three gadgets from your car or from wherever else you have a 12V outlet. I have one in my house for off-the-grid backup power.
Video review…
The solar lights on my property have been dim or have been completely off at night. Maintenance can be done on these lamps to get them working again.
Make Your Own Air Battery
The video below shows three different electrolytes for a cell. Which electrolyte will be the best, producing the most voltage and current?
Making a waffle out of sodium acetate trihydrate. This is the same stuff that makes up “hot ice” and heating pads.
How is the liquid made?
Acid can release electricity from metal. What is an easy-to-find source of acid? Tomatoes!
What kind of tomato is best?
The video below shows how to make a combiner box to allow solar panels and a wind turbine to charge the same battery. Also shown in the video: How to make an extension cord out of spare CRT cables and heat shrink.
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