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Bob’s Solar Project

October 26, 2006 By

solar setup

Solar home project blog by Bob Goodsell of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Bob writes about his experience installing and operating his home photovoltaic system. He is using shingle style solar panels that blend in with his existing shingles on his ranch style home. The main components of Bob’s project are listed below.

  • 84 Unisolar SHR-17 shingles (1428 watts), 12 series strings of 7 shingles each
  • Outback MX60 maximum power point tracking charge controller
  • Outback FX2548 2500 watt, 48 volt inverter
  • 8 Rolls-Surrette S-530 deep-cycle solar batteries (530 AH)

solar project house

Bob’s photovoltaic system is currently producing and average of 4.7 kwh per day of solar power. This is a good blog if you are interested in an alternative to the public power grid.

Read Bob’s Blog Here

Popularity: 5% [?]

Filed Under: Diy

DIY Super Soaker Flame Thrower

October 17, 2006 By

Yes, we are all just a little bit dumber after watching this video clip. What more could I say, a super soaker, some flammable liquid, a flame source, and one dumb ass kid. ***Pure Genius***

Popularity: 9% [?]

Filed Under: Diy, Mods, Videos

GP2X Open Source Portable Gaming Device

October 12, 2006 By

GP2X Portable Gaming System like the Sony psp

The GP2X is an open-source, Linux-based handheld video game console and media player. The device is created and sold by GamePark Holdings of South Korea. The thing that makes this gaming console cool is that the company is trying to do things that the PSP(Very limited portable gaming device, sold by a greedy company named Sony) wouldn’t do with out a firmware hack. the GP2X is designed to play videos, music, view photos, and play games. The console supports emulators including GnGeo which emulates the Neo Geo; gnuboy2x, Game Boy Color emulator; MAME, an emulator of various arcade machines and DrMD, that emulates the Master System, Game Gear and Mega Drive. The player supports up to 2GB of Secure Digital Memory and has a built in TV out. Being a Linux player the GP2X has the ability to support Linux applications, the possibilities are endless.

The GP2X does have its drawbacks. It is still beta, and underpowered, although it can be overclocked. No Games have came out for the system naively, but may games have been ported over from Linux. The price is around ~189.99 and can be purchased at GP2X : Alternative Power Here are some specs:

Product name:    GP2X-F100
CPU:    Dual CPU Cores
ARM920T :     Host processor
ARM940T :     Video Coprocessor
NAND Flash Memory:    64 Mega Byte
Dimension:    143.6mm* 82.9mm*34mm
Weight:    161 Gram (Without Battery)
RAM:    SDRAM 64 Mega Byte
Storage:    SD Card
Connection Type:    2.0 high speed USB

O/S : Linux
Power supply: 2AA
Display: * 3.5″ TFT LCD (Hardware : 16.7 Million Colors / Software: 260,000 Colors)
Resolution: 320*240(QVGA)
Video: MPEG 4, Dvix 3.11,4x,5x, and Higher, XVID, WMV(7,8,9 Later On) Playback,
Audio file : MP3,OGG,WMA(Later On)
Resolution: MAX 720*480 30fps
Frame Rate : Max 30 fps
Bit Rate: Video Max: 2500 Kbps
Audio Max: 384Kbps
Caption: SMI
TV-OUT : NTSC, PAL Support

Audio Channels: Stereo(L+R)
Frequency Rate: 20Hz~20KHz
Bit rate sampling: 16bit/8~48KHz
Equalizer : Normal, Classic, Rock, Jazz, Pop

Additional Function : e-book, game

Image Viewer: JPG, BMP, PCX, GIF, PNG

Continuous:
playback time:
Video Approx.: 4 hours
Audio : Approx. 6 hours

More info on GP2X hardware wiki

Popularity: 10% [?]

Filed Under: Blogroll, Mame, Video Games

DIY Hover Board Video

October 3, 2006 By

This video of a hover board brings back memories of the old Back to The Future II movie. This guy made what is a small controllable hover craft, which seems to be controlled by a hand remote.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Filed Under: Diy, Experimental, Vehicles, Videos