Good morning -First and foremost, a big thank you to all of the Energy Harvesting Challenge participants: we have been impressed with the way their ingenuity and efforts have pushed the frontiers of this technology.As ever, it's been difficult to sel...
Piezo de resistance!Here is a demonstration of a very basic piezo speaker powering the Energy Harvesting Solution To Go Kit. players.brightcove.net/.../index.html By bending its diaphragm backwards and forwards by with just my fingers yield...
Batteries not includedplayers.brightcove.net/.../index.html Here's a demonstration of the first IDIOT product.The IDIOT Energy Harvesting TV Remote Control.No batteries required.
Today while traversing the corridors of the University, I came across this sign: It's a promotional sign for the nanotechnology lab of the University of Twente, apparently they're diving into the energy harvesting material science. Although pro...
Current News The next IDIOTic item is the parasitically powered Inverted MIDI Slave Unit.This unit can be used for lots of different purposes ranging from just a simple status monitor or a device to control lights and the light's brightness, pan and ...
I would like to sum up all the work I have done in one post for those who did not follow this RoadTest and do not want to go through all the posts one by one. Project descriptionThe other night I was making diner in the kitchen and I saw a blink...
Like Victor, I have finished my movie showing off the project. At the end of the week I will try to sum up what I did and learned during this RoadTest. But right now with no further ado, I present to you the carbon monoxide detector project supplied ...
After the last time, I've added the following features / bugfixes to my project Added button handling; one button to reset egg temperature (if inserting new eggs), the other to switch between showing water temperature and egg yolk temperatureThe...
I have soldered and tested my board and I must say – it works great! Here are some pictures of the whole thing: detector, harvester and STK with uC. I have done some energy tests. The output of the harvester chip has 0.1 F supercap. I used LTC31...
My LCD screen is working! Great, great, great.... I'm so happy this is starting to work well!I don't have much time explaining what I did, but I must give credits to EnergyMicro (again) for their outstanding documentation and code library. Last...
Two big anouncements:The roadtest challenge has been extended one week, so the deadline is now friday the 19th. I'm still planning to finish my project this week, otherwise my girlfriend and son will go crazy because I'm spending too much time in my ...
I see that everyone is finishing projects before deadline I wanted to order a custom PCB for my project, but it takes about 7-14 days, so I decided to go back in time, when I lived in my dorm. Me and my friends were creating our own PCBs back then. ...
Here's a word from our other sponsorsIn addition to Würth Elektronik and element14 Energy Micro and Linear Technology are also sponsors of the Energy Harvesting Solution To Go Challenge.This is the result of another test run on the e-paper. Acco...
First: the good news:I found the problem! Now the bad news: I've still got to find the solution.... RecapIn my post from yesterday I told that the output at Vout on the LTC3108 was very low. It was about 800mV. Today I did some experiments:I des...
Yesterday I had everything I needed:Components from Farnell, samples of the microcontroller from EnergyMicro, and PCB's from Wuerth / WE-Direkt !And to further thank the main contributors to this build:From left to right: coil by Wuerth, LTC31...
Bit Moped GraphicsNote: Apologies for this post for being blatently Black and White.To produce graphics for monochrome LCD screens I thought I could take the following approach; 1. Use an existing editor  ...
While my project is not quite finished yet, I would like to share my thoughts about the EH seminar I attended on Tuesday two weeks ago. There were people from all over Poland, even from the opposite site of the country. That shows that companies here...
Early Morning AmnesiaThis is the result from my work from the Ultimate RoadTest. A road test that was sponsored by element14 and Texas Instruments.Read on to find out why it is here. players.brightcove.net/.../index.html Unlike what the dee...
It's far too simple to be true.The e-paper I obtained included a connection diagram and sample software to get it running.It looked straightforward but being the skeptic that I am it seemed too simple to be true.My inital hunch was spot on. I fo...
Be Cautious... Very Cautious...When interfacing my evaluation e-paper modules to the STK3700 I had to be very aware of what's going on.Here is a picture of the e-paper module's interface connector (box header).Can you spot anything wrong with it?At f...
After sending a design to a fab house, I always take a deep breath, and start looking at my design from the relaxed position that I'll just have to wait for my boards to arrive. Now is the time to do some administrative chores such as making a pa...
Not all is what it seems!When you look at the STK3700 there are two USB connectors.- A Mini-B USB socket for the debug interface- A Micro-AB USB socket the GG's USB interface. A Mini-B USB socket is self explanatory. Details of the connector can...
