Category: Educational
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DIY Bus Bars for lithium-ion cells – handmade in the workshop
Recently I needed some copper bus bars for a lithium-ion pack I was building. This pack will be used to power a prototype cooking appliance. But I did not want to buy any pre-made bus bars and decided to try the DIY option. There is also a video documenting this technique posted down below. First…
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Pure 12V Off Grid Cooking With a 200AH LiFePo4 Battery! Article and video
A larger 12v lithium ion battery offers a renewable energy source for cooking. In fact, such a good sized battery can replace the fuel tank typically used for cooking in some scenarios. Recently I received a sample of Power Queen’s 200ah deep cycle LiFePo4 battery. I put it to the test by simultaneously operating three…
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Solar DC Direct Drive 12v / 24v / Series car radiator fans – Bench Test with video
In this article and video I compare the performance of different car radiator fans in a direct PV DC driven (PV-to-Load) shed ventilation scenario. Overview A 50 watt solar panel and a simple car radiator fan makes an extremely simple and robust DIY shed ventilation solution. 12 volt fans are very common and affordable, but…
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Building a Solar Powered Ryobi 18v Battery Supercharger x3 – Project Overview plus DIY video
If there’s one thing that has changed DIY over the past few years, it’s cordless lithium ion powered tools. I use a lot of Ryobi 18v batteries to run tools and have become addicted to their flexibility and affordability. But the charger usually is plugged into an AC outlet. Why not simply plug a solar…
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Nichrome and fuses melting at 1800x magnification – video
Recently I was asked by Joyalens to review their JL246MS digital microscope. I accepted in order to look at Nichrome and fuses up close. (Note I don’t receive any commissions for sales). Interestingly this microscope is USB 5v powered, so it’s easy to run even off of a battery pack if needed. Nichrome wire forms…
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20 Watt Solar Panel Boils an Egg! My ultra efficient solar electric cooker prototype (Video Added)
Cooking food with only 10 watts of solar power sounds unattainable – but it’s not. This was recently proved in my solar workshop. I used a combination of an insulated food container with a diode chain solid state heating element to efficiently extract heat from a solar panel. The result is an ultra efficient mini…
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VIDEO: Digital Multimeters for DIY Solar Power – Tutorial guide
Beginner Friendly! I have produced a second tutorial video about learning to use a Digital Multimeter (DMM) with DIY solar power. In this Part 2 video, I will teach you how do basic measurements and checks against some solar power components. In the video I will also be reviewing my Gochifix 3-in-1 digital multimeter and…
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Tiny 12V LiFePo4 Lithium Solar Powered Kitchen Setup – Emergency Preparedness Test
Cooking food from smaller solar power systems has always been one of my key interests. High tech survival and emergency preparedness too. But cooking with standard kitchen appliances often seems out of reach due to the high power draw required. And many people do not have large batteries and inverters to do the task. The…
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Boiling Diodes: a more efficient way to heat water and cook food using Solar Power
Why Solid State Solar Electric Heating Elements Matter Update: further research has been conducted into this topic, and it has been very fruitful. Videos showing some of the latest results are posted on this page. While continuing my research into solid-state solar electric PV-to-Load heating elements, I decided to try heating and if possible boiling…
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Solid State Solar Electric Heating Elements
Background Update: further research has been conducted into this topic, and it has been very fruitful. Videos showing some of the latest results are posted on this page. I’ve spent a lot of time working with resistance style heating elements to extract heat from solar panel arrays. Uses include space heating, cooking food and heating…
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Simple Solar Electric space heater conversion project (With Video)
Introduction and Recap of Past Work Over the past several years, I have experimentally heated my home and workshop with custom space heaters converted from AC to Direct DC operation. What I wanted to achieve was to plug my space heaters straight into the solar panels, bypassing inverters, charge controllers and batteries. Plus save wear…
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Solar PV DC Home Heating PART 3 – engineering and safety devices
PART 1 AND PART 2 | Solar PV DC Heating for Beginners This blog post is a continuation of my Solar Electric Space Heating series. Since 2022 I have been converting commodity AC space heaters to direct Solar PV DC operation. This follow-up blog post has links to all of my video presentations on this…
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Boiling an Egg with a 100 Watt Solar Panel – Simple Solar Electric Cooking
What can a 100 Watt solar panel actually do? Well, it can boil an egg pretty easily. There are a lot of complicated and expensive ways to cook off of solar. But this is not one of them. One of my favorite ways to use a small solar panel to cook is to simply plug…
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18V tool battery bakes bread! My Mini Oven prototype part 2
Is it possible to bake bread using an 18V Power Tool Battery? Recently, I set out to answer this question. In the back yard I set up a table and connected my mini solar electric PV2L oven to a Ryobi 18V power tool battery with alligator clips. After a few adjustments and a short wait,…
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My Mini 100 Watt solar electric oven prototype – Simple Solar Cooking!
Can a single 100 Watt 12V solar panel supply enough power to cook or bake food by itself? I’ve been thinking about this question for years. A simple portable electric oven that operates off of such a small amount of power could change everything. Finally, after a long wait, the opportunity came to test the…
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Cooling Your Shed With Solar Power! Ventilation and Concepts
(Note: there are detailed shed ventilation videos on YouTube and posted down below) Is your shed (or chicken coop, outbuildings, etc.) getting a bit too hot in the summer time? Ventilating and cooling your shed with solar power is a fun project within reach of just about any DIY enthusiast. Believe it or not, a…
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