the first music I’ve electronically produced in a long time. This is a remix of a song I’m working on for my live performance.
a new project I’m working on to gather all the published and free expertise on renewables. There’s a lot of information out there!
One thing I really want to see happen is the development of a community charge controller.
I’ve published the HCF bike cinema code and schematics, as well as the Mexico mini bike charge controller.
Check it out here: www.openrenewables.org.uk
I met Gustavo at the HCF bike day last week. He wanted a similar system to the bike cinema I’m making for HCF.
I made a modified version of the charge controller in a tiny box. It took about 4 hours to build and test, and then another 4 hours to modify the software.
During stress testing I found that the mosfet I used for low voltage cutout was getting too hot. I had to remove that element of the design because of the short time available.
- The box monitors voltage and current coming in and out of the battery,
- Protects generator with a 60A diode,
- Shows battery high/med/low status lights,
- Shows power generation vs power consumption,
- Broken – Low voltage cut out battery protection.
For anyone interested, I’m releasing my charge controller and automation code for the Hackney City Farm bike cinema. Features include:
- software simulated virtual battery (virtual battery makes the lead/acid chemistry more “intuitive” for the user)
- charge controller protects battery from over charge and low voltage
- voltage and current measured on load and charging circuits 20 times per second
- 16 LEDs showing rate of power in, rate of power out, and charge in the virtual battery
- automation of 2 circuits (LCD&Sounds, DVD)
- infra red remote control of the DVD (NEC pulse system)
Get it here release1.0.tar.gz. The code is released under the GPL license.
Thanks to Emma for editing the guerilla graffiti video! Her work is here.
Loved Video from Emma Richards on Vimeo.
