Well it seems that life (and all its marvelous flavours, fluctuations, and failures) will just. Not. Go. Away. While my endeavours in robotics have not ceased, they have taken somewhat of a backseat to some of my other investigations. This realization has led to my decision to expand this blog (term?) to cover these other interests. Which for the most part are interrelated, and I will spare my many (term?) followers from my involvement in penguin collecting, art photography, empty-nest parenting, and homeowner DYI.
In relation to home monitoring and control, I found I should have my various devices independent of the electrical power feed from Ottawa Hydro. This is not an insignificant task. While many of my devices are battery operated, the connecting infrastructure (WiFi) is not. Fortunately, Value Village has come to my rescue again. Browsing at the Marivale Road store, I found an APC 330 watt UPS, and after doing some MacGyverisk testing (note to self: carry a small multi-meter in the car), I found that the Gel Cell seemed to still have a charge and was possibly still useful. I have the unit at home now and doing further testing before using it to power my wireless router and a couple of monitors.
Charging gel cell with constant current of 1 amp and constant voltage of 14.1 volts
Post Script: For some of the more power hungry monitoring devices, I am looking at an Adafruit device (PowerBoost 1000 Charger) to perform UPS functionality. Alternately
GreatScott! has some interesting circuits that I may be able to jury rig to that purpose.
What keeps me from the commission of so many possible and grievous sins:
- Physics of nature and the nature of physics
- Quantum physics
- Sterling engines
- Astronomy
- House automation
- Weather monitoring/logging
- Environment monitoring/control
- Video surveillance/capture
- Power
- Battery power sources
- Power backup (UPS)
- Solar Generation
- Wind Generation
- WAN/LAN/PAN networking
- DMZ
- WiFi Mesh
- Bluetooth LE
Newbury Pi 