After finding out that 2 old SOLVINDEN lamps died because of a faulty switch and fixing them, I was curious how does the battery hold up after so many years. Ikea recommends to replace the battery after 2 years, but I never did. All the batteries in the lamp are made in China, but the batteries they sell in the store are made in Japan, so they are different. So let’s put them to the… Continue reading
Intro A while ago I set out to build a solar lamp that can work all the time, especially in the dark winter months. Using real solar production data and a simple excel model, I was able to figure out combinations of battery and solar cells that would be able to power the LED in a SOLVINDEN lamp through the dark winter months. But in my laziness, i never ended up building it. Until I… Continue reading
Last Christmas I picked up the functional part of an Ikea SOLVINDEN lamp that has failed from my parent’s garden. I was curious what caused it to fail. After charging the battery and putting it back in the lamp, nothing happened. The switch felt rather rusty when toggling. The randomness in me (or the kid) flicked the switch frantically a few more times and … boom! There came a spark of light. A few more… Continue reading
Intro Everybody knows them: solar garden lamps. They work quite well during summers, when there is a lot of sun, days are long and nights are short. But come winter nights and you barely get anything from them. So i thought, what would it take to make a solar lamp that can always run when it is dark, winter or summer? In fact, this ties into a more general question: how do I size a… Continue reading
Intro My first 3D printer from 2014 was a noisy mess of spilled out guts. Upgrading to the Anycubic i3 Mega was a great positive impression, though some noise tweaks were needed. For the last couple of years, my 3D printer was a Prusa Mini+. It had the right upgrades I wanted: network control, smaller size, and supposed better print quality, all right from the box. Then it was also updated to support input shaper… Continue reading
TL;DR: The USBC is just a connector that can support multiple functions on each device. USBC cables themselves are different depending on what functionality they support. But in a major screwup, there is no labelling cables and sometimes even on devices to know what is supported. So you cannot know if you can get function X from the first device, the cable and the second device when connected together. Intro Let’s say your friend gives… Continue reading
Intro We are now living in a world where incandescent light bulbs are almost completely replaced with LED lamps. LED lighting is everywhere, and delivers good results: good light quality, good price, excellent energy efficiency and pretty much 100% compatible with existing fixtures. But things were not always this great, the journey between now and the old incandescent bulbs is quite a bumpy one. And speaking of a bumpy journey, this journey is a good… Continue reading
Intro For a while now, I started replacing the dead AA(A) batteries in my sensor nodes with rechargeable NiMH ones. So, since these batteries are rechargeable, I thought, why not trying adding small solar panels for sensor nodes, where light is abundant. Node 27: outside sensor Purpose: outside temperature, humidity, light, pressure sensor. Powered by 2 x AAA 500mAh from Ikea. The solar cell is rated 3V, 125mA and is pointing vertically south and costs… Continue reading
TL;DR It’s a good flashlight with a lot of features, but it overestimates the battery life by 2-3 times and the user interface is horrible, as there are more than 20 functions accessible through a single button. Intro A friend of mine showed me the Wurkkos HD20, so I immediately ordered the HD15, as the smaller version with 18650 sounded more fit. Seemed like the exact thing to have around the house or when travelling… Continue reading
Update after 3 months The UPS is functioning as it should, and I think the solution is viable as a simple, low cost UPS where it is needed. It was a good mind and build exercise, but there are two reasons why I am not keeping it: First – realistically speaking, electricity fails way too seldom to actually use it. Second, unless I build one of these for each room, I will always have to… Continue reading