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Building a Car
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(December 18, 2005) When you're starting absolutely from scratch like this,
it's important to find inspiration somewhere. I used to be a member in the
Northeast Renewable Energy Something (this goes back a dozen years before
my last swerve in life kept me from building an electric car), but aside
from some solar car competitions put on for engineering students, there's
not a whole lot out there to be inspired by. Practical solar electric
applications relating to cars are few and far between, so I'm throwing in
the one at the left as a perfect example.It looks a little like a villain
from Dr. Who or Lost in Space, but it's actually a parking ticket dispenser
in Jerusalem, and Israel is full of these things. It's sunny and the ground
is rocky, so pulling underground wires is an added pain, making solar all
the more attractive. The little PV panel under the diffusion dome is enough
to keep the coin operating, ticket printing device running 24x7, so there
has to be a battery involved as well.
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A pretty humble starting place for a page about batteries and solar electric
charging systems, but I'll be adding to it as I chase down the current facts
with the blog. I did just add something to my used laptop pages about
extending the battery life of your notebook.
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Building
or Buying a House
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