DIY solar powered boombox

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frugal-phile™
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Re: Sundown Update

panomaniac said:
You would certainly want the most efficient speakers you can carry.

I have an untried 4.5 litre FE127 design on the books... ~92 dB 1W and bass to just below 100 Hz.

I have the (uncut) wood to make a green/solar house on the south side of my house. I will have a 14' x 24' wall i was going to use to collect solar energy. I was going to use black PVC and heat a fluid... anyone know of an easy way to convert this to electricity?

dave
 
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Re: Re: Sundown Update

planet10 said:

anyone know of an easy way to convert this to electricity?

dave


Heat to electricity conversion is still very inefficient, unless the temperature rise is enough to boil water to produce steam to drive a turbine.
Better to exchange the heat from this to your domestic hot water use, any temperature rise there will be cost effective.
 
frugal-phile™
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Re: Re: Re: Sundown Update

MJL21193 said:
Better to exchange the heat from this to your domestic hot water use, any temperature rise there will be cost effective.

That is the intended purpose -- water heating -- and using water-to-air radiators -- to heat the house. I was just wondering if i could tack some electricity generation onto the same energy collection aparatus... looks like it may be more effective to have 2 collection systems (and a bank of batteries)

dave
 
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Sundown Update

planet10 said:

... looks like it may be more effective to have 2 collection systems (and a bank of batteries)


There's a lot of information out there about solar heating, it's a complicated system. To be as efficient as possible a large collection tank is needed to "store" the collected heat until it's needed. This can then be drawn on just like a battery in an electical system, but instead of volts/amps it would draw BTU's.

You still live in BC Dave? Does the rain let up and the sun come out long enough for this to be viable? :D :D ;)

Electricity from solar is still grossly inefficient. Cells are expensive, have low output and don't last forever. Ditto for a battery bank. A massive inverter is needed to convert all that DC to useable AC.
Far more efficient is wind turbine, powering an AC generator.
The wind blow out there on the coast Dave?
Goodluck.
 
frugal-phile™
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Sundown Update

MJL21193 said:
You still live in BC Dave? Does the rain let up and the sun come out long enough for this to be viable? :D :D ;)

Electricity from solar is still grossly inefficient. Cells are expensive, have low output and don't last forever. Ditto for a battery bank.

The wind blow out there on the coast Dave?

Even when it is raining you'd be surprised how much heat you can capture. Any electricity generated would be used to drive a separate DC infrastructure. Where i am wind isn't consistent enuff.... and any tower high enough to get above the trees would be nixed by the construction police & be big bucks... harnessing the water course thru the backyard during the winter is a viable option... the more it rains the more it flows.

dave
 
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Sundown Update

planet10 said:

Even when it is raining you'd be surprised how much heat you can capture. Any electricity generated would be used to drive a separate DC infrastructure.


If you concentrate on maximizing the heat gain aspect, you could save enough money on both heating your house and heating domestic water, that you wouldn't mind paying for the electricity.
These are the two biggest energy drains in the average house.

More progress has to be made in photovoltaic cell technology before it becomes cheap enough to be cost effective for use on a scale as small as a single house.
To give an idea of how inefficient these cells are it would take about 20 square meters of panel area to power an electric kettle. That's with the sun shining.

A miniature hydro-electric plant in your back yard? It might be more do-able than the solar electric scheme.
 

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frugal-phile™
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Sundown Update

MJL21193 said:
that you wouldn't mind paying for the electricity.
These are the two biggest energy drains in the average house....to power an electric kettle. That's with the sun shining.

The alternate electricity is more of a back-up for when the main power is out. We have wood stove (& BBQ) to boil water.

dave
 
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Sundown Update

planet10 said:


The alternate electricity is more of a back-up for when the main power is out. We have wood stove (& BBQ) to boil water.

dave

UPS. Build your own high capacity from marine deep cycle batteries, than trickle charge from the mains. Shouldn't die before power is restored.
Then sit back and wait for solar panels to improve and drop in price, your storage system is done.
 
frugal-phile™
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pekar said:
Have you published those 4.5 liter FE127 plans?

I haven't published them yet... I have 4 or 5 variations kicking around. We decided to build up a set of plain-jane boxes with a circular port 1st just to make sure we weren't out to lunch on the sonics. They woun' have the finese in the bass (at least i believe) of the final with high profile slot ports, but should give a good idea.... internal gross volume 0.483 litres with a 1" ID port 48mm long -- stuff lightly. if you want to get playing. Modded FE127 in stock.

In the back of my mind is an even smaller variation using the FF85K,

dave
 
Btw, I recieved the modules from siliconsolar. Absolutely fantastic. 8 volts 250mA in a 141.35x141.35 mm (measured, a little bigger than the spec sheet says) epoxy encased pre-soldered package with direct solder pads on the back.

The finish is great with a 3.45 mm thickness on the middle slopping towards the edges to 1.95 mm. They also have a higher working angle than any I've tried before. Can't wait to start blasting my own solarpowered DIY boomblaster.
 
pekar said:
Is there a reason you didn't choose these-
http://www.siliconsolar.com/OEM-Solar-Panel-9V-350mA-315W-p-16182.html
panels, they would seem to be a better deal?

After a few inquiries, siliconsolar admitted to have messed up the specs for some of their OEM parts after I pointed out that some of the specs listed were physically impossible to achive even at 100% conversion effeciency. They're correcting it.

They have erroneously put in mA were it should read mW. Those that you linked to are only 350mW @ 9V, not 350mA @ 9V.

The webpage is still riddled with mistakes though, so inquire to get exact specs before purchase.
 
Yesterday I drove past Roskilde, had to think about you Saturnus :) Been on a holiday to Sweden, met the man behind 41hz.com.... As I expected he's quite a nice guy....

He's doing pretty well, surrounded by women helping him on the job :D

Helped him out with the last bits on AMP10 basic to get it released, very nice sounding little amp.

I'm working on a mini waterproof stereo active speaker myself. Here's a pic:
 

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I live in Copenhagen, you could've stopped by me to have a look at (or listen to) my boombox. Send me an e-mail next time you pass by these northern outskirts of the civilized world. :D

Yeah, I saw the amp10basic being announced, hopefully that also means Jan has found some coils that could be used in a future amp9basic.

Lovely cool lil' thing you got there. Macaroni? Hmm... how about Maca(r)phony? :) Or even MyCarPhony.

I have plans for a similar one, just with two solid plastic balls both cut with a V shape with a 60 degree angle, and a small space between the two cuts. Then glued together at one cut, and the speaker mounted in the other cut.
 
I sure will, but I was with friends and one audio related visit was all they could handle...:clown: But 'I'll be back!'

I can't check the uH value for TA2022 and TAA4100A right now I somehow can't connect to 41hz.com.... But current-wise the inductors should work for AMP9.

Mycarphony? Some of my friends made fun of it the same way before saying 'hello?' in one end ;) ...No, it doesn't sound that good in a car. I know because my car amp (audiodigit MC4x100,much like AMP9) had fried itself on the way up (it was covered with someone's blanket) So I had to use the 'macaroni'. Than met Jan and got myself another AMP9, than the whole content of my car was stolen. They smashed the back window and stole all my clothes, my amp, batterychargers, batteries, discman, bikestuff and all my dirty laundry :D Lucky I still had the macaroni under my seat....and an MP3 player....

Thanks to Jan I had a new trunk door from the trashyard within an hour for just 100EUR :)

How's a solid plastic ball gonna work as an enclosure?
:apathic:
 
Very sorry to hear your experience from Stockholm. I always liked the city very much and have several friends there that I visit as often as I can, in fact I'm going there in 2 weeks time. Hope your insurance covers the loses, and you know, sometimes it's good to have a forced wardrobe change. :) (I too once had a lot of clothes stolen).

We had a beach party on saturday with my boombox, several friends, and BBQ. It was great.

You'll have to excuse my lack of Paint-skills but I've tried to illustrate the principle of the double ball speaker here. The balls aren't really balls, they're roughly 200mm diameter round trawl floaters used for keeping the top part of a fishing trawl up. They're made of roughly 4mm thick very hard plastic with a hole through the middle. The idea is to cut it so the solid hole is cut out.
 

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