Intro A while ago I set out to build a solar lamp that can work all the time, especially in the dark winter months. After a while I realized that there is already some version of it in my home. So now it’s time for part 3 SOLVINDEN skeleton, new insides Step 1 – beef up the solar panels: 2 pieces of 6V 133mA each Step 2 – assemble the led head Step 3 –… Continue reading
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
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 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
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
Intro When using my new Energizer pivot torch i noticed that it dims itself slowly over 15 minutes from the start, reaching 1/10 of the maximum intensity. The torch does this on purpose and can be reset by turning it off and on again. The HD vision headlamp This lamp is probably my most used torch in my life. Even though I got it about 8 years ago for caving, it saw most action as… Continue reading
Intro I currently use aNikon Z5 camera. The Z5 is interesting in one aspect, it finally has USB charging using USB-PD. In my opinion, USB charging should have been present in all cameras since they started having a USB port, even if charging with the limited 2.5W will take a long time. But, nowhere in the manual or the specifications does Nikon say what parameters the USB PD charger is working at, so I decided… Continue reading
Intro The wireless sensor modules I built for my smart home are doing fine in terms of battery life without much effort. Typical life is 1-1.5 years for AAA powered and more than double that for AA powered nodes. So I thought I would have a better look at ESP-NOW. That’s because an ideea popped up during discussion with a friend: can he build a simple sensor network, quick and easy, with off the shelf… Continue reading
Check out part 2, where the basil is watered automatically. Intro Part of my home automation system is monitoring the well-being of various other non-human species around the house. So i started with the plants. Since they are mostly fixed creatures and generally require only water input from humans, monitoring the soil humidity is a good start. How There are quite a few ways to measure how much water is in the soil, some of… Continue reading