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My Notebook

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OperaHouse:
I'm always writing down notes, but seem to lose them or they are 800 miles away when I want to look at them.  This is going to be a collection of my notes that hopefully won't get lost in a system upgrade. Some circuits might be handy for others.  I will not elaborate on each too much.

This first circuit turns on power to extraneous functions when the panels are generating sufficient power. It reads voltage of the panels which early in the morning closely follows battery voltage.  When it gets to be around 13V it turns this stuff on.  This allows my micro to turn on early and stabilize due to reduced load on the panels.  Basically an adjustable zener.  The 12V relay and series resistor latch at about 6.5V and drop out about 2.5V.  This hysteresis prevents the relay dropping out during the day when battery voltage may drop to 12.5V on current surges. In the evening it turns stuff off before the micro stops working.

This is in a small outlet sized plastic box.  Didn't have room for another test point so I attached the metal pot body to the zener so I could measure the voltage.  Not having a great resistor stock, I do a lot of series parallel combinations to get the values needed.

george65:
Sounds like a very useful Circuit. I wish I knew enough to follow it and make it work as I'd love something like that. Surprised the chinese haven't got anything like it in a pre made board, not that I can find anyway.

As far as notes go, I keep those bits of paper either in the filing cabinet or in my Diary.  The filing cabinet has become like the home for all the most important stuff. Pictures, back up Hdd's, memorabilia of important personal occasions and even some documents.  When we moved the other week I simply locked the thing shut and a mate and I put it in the back of the trailer. Last in, first out right to it's new spot. Nothing important was lost or misplaced and I was able to go right to what I wanted and knew where it was.

'Bout the only thing I can say that about so far!

Things like that I also scan and keep an electronic record of.  I make a copy on a couple of HDD's on the computer and a USB stick which then goes in said filing cabinet.

ontfarmer:
  Thanks for posting your  "Notes"  when i get to some of my plans that will work.  I will need some help then,  appreciate you sharing you knowledge.  Hope things are going good for you.

clockmanFRA:
Like 'george65' I constantly back up with USB sticks, but pop them in a small bubble envelope and in my fire proof safe.

I have been using Kingston 32GB but wondered how long they would actually last as a storage medium.?

Since 1989 on my big PC I have had 3 hard drive crashes, the last, 5 years ago was not so bad as I had back up USB's with all my CAD drawings, PCB designs etc, Book stuff, correspondence, email, Photos etc.

I need some more USB sticks, anyone suggest a good quality long lasting make? Thanks.

 

Mary B:
I use a 1TB external USB drive to backup. Pop it in the safe for storage. I pull a full image of the hard drive so I could literally drop the backup drive in the computer if the main fails.

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