And so it begins

[GeeMac]

Hi folks - I added two fifteen watt panels to my existing array of six teeny panels and installed a new thousand watt inverter off the battery. I have now got my server running on solar . . .  more to come.

                                   [30]

[DamonHD]

Kewl!

What is the power consumption of your server?  I reduced mine from 670W to less than 30W (less than 20W off DC) but still that is not nearly enough to run it off a reasonable amount of solar (80W+) year-round...

Rgds

Damon

[GeeMac]

My adventure running a server with solar power ran eight hours, then the battery juice got low enough to shut down the inverter. Next, pension payday I'll buy another battery. It looks as if I'll need three batteries to run the unit twenty-four hours and maybe six to sustain it. I'll be needing more panels too. Once I get my windmill involved things might get better. The biggest problem I have is that I am in the suburbs and not out in the country, so I can't just raise a tower or two and put up windmills without running into city by-laws and dorky politicians. So far so good though.

Side note - Science has proven that over eighty percent of the earth, there is enough wind at 80 meters in the air to provide five times the needs of mankind.

80 meters is roughly 250 feet.

[TomW]

Gee;

I hate to tell you this, but, adding more storage will not help unless you can put the amps into them.

It seems to be common for folks to grossly underestimate the power use of devices. I think it comes from being used to just flipping a switch and it is there.

Just a first set of thoughts.

Cheers.

TomW

[kurt]

unless your server is a laptop i think you are pissing in the wind when jimu was running the irc server on a laptop in his basement off solar it took all that 120w of panels could give just to keep up with it. and that was a very old low power laptop with the screen turned off and the only things running on it were the irc server and the cgi server that jim ran for the irc.

[snowcrow]

Hi kurt, I am interested in finding out more about jimu's setup, because I plan to put up a movable PVC weather station tower. I'll be using a old laptop for data collection 24/7 to find the best location for my windmill. Right now I have a 80 watt panel and Air-x charging a 240Ah, 12 volt bank. I think it maybe fine for now, but fear that when winter comes, it will be a different story!!

Blessings, Snow Crow

[TomW]

crow;

Forget the laptop. Get a Linksys Slug [NSL2 network appliance] it runs on like 7 or 8 watts. Of course it does not run microshaft that I am aware of. I use it for logging and control here. Very versatile and not very expensive. With a Debian Linux install you have a LOT of programs you can use as well the power of shell scripting / perl, etc. All in a package the size of 2 packs of cigarettes.

Cheers.

TomW

[DamonHD]

Tom, my laptop is down to ~20W with care from DC and I'm sure with real effort (and this s running many public servers including Web/DNS/etc) it could go down to 10W average.  You'll all know how to do it when I finish my write-up...

The point is, the slug is a very nice idea, and I know I got excited by it, but a standard laptop is easier to get software for, etc, etc, and need not use much power.

But I agree again with you, people have NO IDEA how much power these things use until they actually try to run them off solar: I know I didn't!

Rgds

Damon

[TomW]

Damon;



The point is, the slug is a very nice idea, and I know I got excited by it, but a standard laptop is easier to get software for, etc, etc

I disagree, unless you can't figure out computers that don't have a GUI. Or have been brainwashed into thinking if you don't pay for it it is no good.

How hard is it to issue the command apt-get install [program]?

To each his own tho.

Cheers.

TomW

[DamonHD]

Tom,

Most of the computers I've ever worked on have been headless, I think.  B^>  Just like me, only better looking...  I am NO fan of 'fluff' GUIs, trust me.

And besides, I needed 1GB+ of RAM and Java and 10GB+ of disc to run my main app, which is all just a smart distributed multimedia cache.  The slug wouldn't cut it for my latest project: I did look again, I promise!  B^>

Rgds

Damon

[TomW]

Damon;

Very true, it is no Core Duo with a gig of RAM but it does have 3+ gigs of microdrive storage.

My needs do not require extreme speed or horsepower.

Cheers.

TomW

[snowcrow]

Hey Tom, I'm a bit software challenged when it come Linux and the Linksys Slug, you'll have to show me what you're talking about, screen shot, picture, link!? I run Microshaft!! The one wire weather station is what I'm go to put up on the tower. It does have Linux software for it! Link below.

http://www.aagelectronica.com/aag/index.html

Blessings, Snow Crow