Blog

We Have A Winner!

2013-08-20T07:13:06Z

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...(read more)

A Very Compact Guide to Energy Harvesting - Part 036

2013-08-03T01:31:42Z

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...(read more)

A Very Compact Guide to Energy Harvesting - Part 035

2013-07-30T22:41:32Z

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.(read more)

Energy harvesting; it's closing in on me!

2013-07-30T12:46:05Z

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...(read more)

A Very Compact Guide to Energy Harvesting - Part 037

2013-07-26T20:35:42Z

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 ...(read more)

Carbon Monoxide Detector: The Road So Far

2013-07-17T10:45:22Z

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...(read more)

Carbon monoxide detector: the movie

2013-07-15T20:50:00Z

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 ...(read more)

Grande Finale: Video of Energy Harvesting egg cooker!

2013-07-15T12:27:00Z

https://vimeo.com/70324937 Energy Harvesting Solutions: egg timer from Tinkerer on Vimeo. Hello All! This is my 'grande finale' post in the Energy Harvesting Solutions Roadtest Challenge! It's been a nice challenge, with a...(read more)

Building and debugging my harvester - Part 5

2013-07-12T22:36:08Z

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...(read more)

Carbon monoxide detector test

2013-07-12T14:29:26Z

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...(read more)

Building and debugging my harvester - Part 4

2013-07-10T22:43:19Z

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...(read more)

Building and debugging my harvester - Part 3

2013-07-10T18:45:36Z

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 ...(read more)

Homemade PCB

2013-07-09T23:00:05Z

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. ...(read more)

A Very Compact Guide to Energy Harvesting - Part 028

2013-07-09T21:55:10Z

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...(read more)

Building and debugging my harvester - Part 2

2013-07-09T19:27:50Z

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...(read more)