Solar Power

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yeah i someone would say something like that. But what I want is more or less a toy, because I like messing with stuff. Also fission is kinda sucky unless you use thorium, which they don't yet...

And you don't have to talk to me like a little kid. I'm not 6.

I had no idea.

I figured you were 15 or less. Youth is wasted on the young.

ruveyn

I am.
<---

I'm not six, nor am I older than 15.

It is fun to build this stuff, and it's a cheap hobby.

physicsnut42, There was an interesting artical about building a wind turbine from an old DC motor (albiet a somewhat larger one) in Make magazine a few years ago. Our local library has back issues available, you might check yours, or it's probably available somewhere online also.

Another fun thing I have been playing with lately is Supercapacitors. ( values over 1 farad). These act pretty much like batteries.

ah as condescending and unknowledgable as ever, always nice to see ones impressions hold true.

If you have a better idea, then share it with us.

At this instant neither solar power (photovoltaic) or wind generated electricity is sufficiently robust to power up a world class industrial economy. At this juncture, photovoltaic and wind generating technology can do no more than fill a niche or two.

What we need and do NOT have is a cheap reliable battery system that can store electricity generated by photovoltaic and wind sources, concentrate the power (think of a slow mo capacitor here) and let out the power as a steady baseline source.

ruveyn

Two words: THORIUM REACTOR!! !! !! !! !! !

and no one said they should.

we agree on many points, i for one would love throium reactors as a bulk power source, but it too has its limitations on a global scale, there is also many intermittent power requirements where cheaper alternative sources are a better investment.

to be fair i was purposfully brash in my previous post, i think your bias on this point outwheighs your real world knowledge of the current implementation.

i for one have all my direct power usage(not for the energy that went into the stuff i purchased) offset by wind power and i pay the exact same average as my neighbour who doesnt.
this however is only feasible because of the distributed nature of wind power, and that it isnt cyclical like solar.)

it wont power industry in that you are correct, at least not untill molten salt batteries become cheap enough for mass usage, but it can and does supplement industrial power usage, especially here in denmark where some companies offset their entire power usage, though usually we are talking about the less energy hungry companies here, a brewery would have no choice and in some cases would even have to install their own generator.

in the context of using solar, on the ships i mentioned it can power all of their mains power, ships of that size and function needs to store huge quantities of backup power in the first place and that fact was utilized by allowing half of their capacity to be used as a dynamic load cell for the solar system, this in turn means that you dont need one of the two turbines to either power on intermittently(expensive as their spin up phase eats fuel with little function) or stay on for a period at lowest throttle, "slowly" eating fuel, all of this is at standby mind you.

for a ship that operates with its turbines on for the purpose of powering the crane or propelling itself during daytime that means the solar cells can then be used to recharge the battery bank.

in the context of what the poster you replied to wanted to do however none of this matters, someone wants to learn by doing and is instantly met with a dismissive and largely irrelevant view point in that context.
especially when you follow up with something that is scarcely more than an insult.

Last edited by Oodain on 28 Aug 2012, 10:01 am, edited 2 times in total.

Sounds like you'll want to bulid a charge controller for your battery. 6V being fed by 9V isn't going to make it happy. You can find some pretty simple schematics round the internet. I think I saw one recently that uses 555 timers in an unusual way to accomplish the task. These are the most common ICs in the world, with like 4 billion being made a year. Also the inventor/designer of the 555 timer just died last week.

I have a couple little panels I need to do something with... maybe I'll do something 'bout the same this weekend. sounds fun!