Solstice upgrade progress
Solstice is coming along nicely. The new charge controller is doing it's job quite well, despite only getting indirect sunlight on the panels for most of the time.
Outgoing power is now controlled by MOSFETs. This is a bit of a temporary setup though, because this incarnation uses N-channel MOSFETs and does low side switching. I just received all the proper parts (P-channel MOSFETs, new PCB) to do proper high side switching, so i can have everything on a common ground.
I'm still waiting for a few parts from China, though, including proper bus bar terminals for hooking up the solar panels in parallel with proper reverse blocking diodes. For my setup, using parallel instead of series for the panels makes a lot more sense. my house is surrounded by trees and there's always one or more panels shaded. It will also allow me to hook up my experimental panels to the setup without having to worry that the 100 Watt commercial panels will roast my 5-20 Watt DIY panels.
I've also added a DHT sensor (but as these things go, the humidity sensor died the first night, but i still got the cabinet temperature).
I've also added a Raspberry Pi 2 for future projects that need proper "high speed" store-and-forward data links. It's not yet hooked up or programmed or has any of it's electronics, but i had the back plate of the cabinet out already (not fun) and decided i do all the drilling and screwing for this as well.
The Arduino has now a simple door sensor, just to alert me if i forgot to close the cabinet door.
To support all that, and to better use the charge controller, i upgraded the Arduino software quite a lot. It's not only more reliable but i can also read and write any modbus registers and coils from the charge controller via the nRF24 Deep Garden Network. In the process, i decided to go from the lowest to the highest nRF24 data rate and itz works like a charm.
As i have said, most of the time the solar panels only receive indirect light due to all the trees. Most of which i intent to keep. This certainly lowers the efficiency of the setup. I'm OK with that, because i love those trees and they keep the neighbors from looking in.
  
You'll notice that the panels look in different directions. Through experimentation, i found out that this is the optimal setup for the location i had available.
The two angled panels catch the sun from sunrise to about noon, a bit longer in winter when there are no leaves on the trees (and in midsummer when the sun is higher in the sky). The upright panel gets a lot of (mostly indirect) light in from noon to late afternoon, keeping the battery charge up nearly until sunset. The other reason for putting this one panel upright is winter: Even when there is snow on the angled panels, i still get a bit of power from the upright panel. Not much, but enough to keep the Arduino running for weeks until the snow melts of the other panels.
DGN1 relocation
DGN1 (Deep Garden Network relais 1) has beed relocated from the unused upstairs guest bedroom to my balcony door. This now enables radio communication in my lower yard for future missions.
It's also gotten a secondary task to check if my balcony door is open, since i use that door to get fresh air into my living spaces. In winter i run some backup space heaters as well as a humidifier through my DIY home automation. These now turn of pretty much instantly (within 2 seconds usually) whenever i open the balcony door and restart as soon as i close it.
  (And yes, that is a working rotary telephone next to my high speed DSL modem. These days i'll have to use a DTMF app on my smartphone to dial, but an Arduino solution is on the way).
DGN2 retirement
I decided to retire my DGN2 relais. Now that communication to Solstice works so well (and it works as a relais, too), there just was no need to operate DGN2. The Arduino Mega will now be retasked in my efforts to develop the next generation of GSP computers and electronics.
BedroomSensor
I needed a new temperature/humidity sensor in my bedroom for my DIY home automation. I still had ye olde Balcony1 (used for solar experiments and testing different types of soil humidity sensors) lying around in my box of old experiments. After a bit of soldering and programming, it now serves as a 100%-recycled-parts addition to my home automation. In addition to that, it can also relais messages, just as any other device on my DGN network.
It also sports a K-type thermocouple to measure the temperature of my tiled stove (sorry, no pictures).
I'm still working on a software upgrade for BedroomSensor to bring it up to spec with Solstice and DGN1.
It will probably a few weeks until i post more updates on the Solstice upgrades, it really depends on how long it takes for the last parts to arrive from China. |
