Solar power and the Basic Stamp
Buck Rogers
Posts: 2,189
Hello!
Okay here's a new idea: Can a BS2 be powered by a crowd of standard model solar cells, and be managing a datalogger device?
Remember that's the gizmo wrapped around the one from FTDI and using an appropriate sized thumb drive as its storage mechanism.
I worked out this one as a thought experiment figuring it would need some help along from the group here. While I'm not planning on stuffing this thing into a vacuum safe shell and making arrangements to park it in orbit, especially since it would also need a means of sending its information down here, and currently that's beyond me, I figured it would make a good example of what's really possible with them.
Okay so the idea looks like its really a bird normally found in Maine.
But I am famous in real life for strange ideas.
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Buck Rogers
www.gregg.levine.name
Okay here's a new idea: Can a BS2 be powered by a crowd of standard model solar cells, and be managing a datalogger device?
Remember that's the gizmo wrapped around the one from FTDI and using an appropriate sized thumb drive as its storage mechanism.I worked out this one as a thought experiment figuring it would need some help along from the group here. While I'm not planning on stuffing this thing into a vacuum safe shell and making arrangements to park it in orbit, especially since it would also need a means of sending its information down here, and currently that's beyond me, I figured it would make a good example of what's really possible with them.
Okay so the idea looks like its really a bird normally found in Maine.
But I am famous in real life for strange ideas.
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Buck Rogers
www.gregg.levine.name
Comments
What's the rating of each?
Hitt Consulting's datalogger uses less current than the one that Parallax sells, but it uses an MMC or SD card and is limited to using 32MB.
Check here: www.hittconsulting.com/.
Hello!
Honestly? When it comes to a rating for the ones that I am thinking of, I actually do not know. I saw these while picking up something else several days ago.
Since at the time I was focused on this other thing, they just flitted by.
As for a crowd, I was thinking of the item count to provide the proper voltages for running the devices without unduly straining anything.
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Buck Rogers
www.gregg.levine.name
Hello!
Sounds reasonable. I will of course need to double-check the ratings on the cells of course.
Think of the classic satellite design, solar cells as paddles, grabbing a ball or tube, with the object in question being the container for the things the satellite was sent up to do.
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Buck Rogers
www.gregg.levine.name
Hello!
It's an idea. However I had originally worked out the whole arrangement like this:
Think of the classic satellite design, solar cells as paddles, grabbing a ball or tube, with the object in question being the container for the things the satellite was sent up to do.
The other one is that I have here both a 64MB and I believe a 256MB thumb drive and they just lend themselves to a
simple seeming gizmo like this.
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Buck Rogers
www.gregg.levine.name
Here is an interesting solar powered data logging application note published by Parallax.
http://www.parallax.com/Portals/0/Downloads/appnt/stamps/bs1Appnotes.pdf
I hope this helps.
SJW