Collexion and Parkingday

[Nikolai Warner]

Hi pals,

Collexion might have the opportunity to participate in our city's effort in this:

http://parkingday.org/

Sound interesting? Got any wacky ideas?

i've attached some pdfs with mo info. ;)

yours,

nikolai

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[Mike Dillion]

I can't think of a anything brilliant just yet but I like that shirt
they're selling. http://www.printmojo.com/parkingday/Store/index.php

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[Vincent Purcell]

I saw this installation at MIC/A where the guy attached an array of like 200 of peizo pieces to the cement in their graphic design building in one corner and then imported the pulses to Processing and played back on a stereo what sounded like whale calls induced from vibrations on the building from cars, people walking, wind, etc...

And I've kind of wanted to do something like that since.

Just an idea.

-v

[Vincent Purcell]

So hooking up the piezo piece to a system and while playing the sounds, also have the spot filled with a bunch of sticks of varying height with RGB LEDs on them where the color gradients correspond to the sensor data in addition to playing the sound?

This sounds way too much for a one-day thing... but could be fun. now i'm excited.

On Jul 25, 2012, at 12:53 PM, Mike Dillion wrote:

[Chris Harn]

I would love to see something like an "off-grid living room"

electricity: solar powered, maybe a DIY wind turbine.
evaporative cooled? absorption cooled?

maybe just bring a handful of car batteries and use inverters to get AC for
household devices

[Dave]

--- On Wed, 7/25/12, Chris Harn <har...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> From: Chris Harn <har...@hotmail.com>
> Subject: Re: Collexion and Parkingday
> To: coll...@googlegroups.com
> Cc: "Griffin VanMeter" <gri...@bullhorncreative.com>
> Date: Wednesday, July 25, 2012, 3:29 PM
>
> I would love to see something like an "off-grid living room"

I think we all would, too. Just think a coal fired boiler operating an electric generator,
and spewing big columns of thick, black smoke. Err, no, wait a moment....err, what are
y'all doing with those pitchforks?

> electricity: solar powered, maybe a DIY wind turbine.
> evaporative cooled? absorption cooled?

The big problem is that it's expensive to harness solar energy. The costs are coming
down, but they still not cheap, and the efficiency is pretty low.

Wind turbines can produce a fair amount of power, but only when the wind is
blowing. Plus, they need to be fairly large, and located well above the ground
so that the air doesn't swirl from ground contact so much.

But, both systems require a way to store the power produced during the sunny/windy
periods for use later (More on that in a moment.).

Evaporative/absorption cooling work, mostly, at least when the humidity levels are
low (which they're usually not in central Kentucky).

One option may be to use solar energy to operate a absorption refrigeration system
for air conditioning. That might just work. Maybe.

Something I've toyed with over the years has been using a Seebeck cell to produce
electricity. I have a plan to (eventually) build a solar hot water collector, and use
that to power the Seebeck cell. Yeah, the efficiency will be abysmal, and the power
output also, but the components are pretty cheap. Might make an interesting
demonstration, or a project for third world countries.

> maybe just bring a handful of car batteries and use inverters to get AC for household
> devices

No, don't use car batteries. Lead-Acid batteries intended for automotive applications
are designed to produce a short, high current pulse, and to not be discharged very
much in the process. A deep discharge of an automotive starting battery will, usually,
quickly kill it, due to Lead flaking off of the plates.

A deep cycle/marine battery is much better suited for deep discharges. Unfortunately,
they're usually a bit more expensive than Lead-Acid batteries intended for
automotive starting applications (Is it the economy of scale thing kicking in?).

There are, of course, other alternatives to the Lead-Acid battery for energy storage.
The Edison cell is supposedly rather good, and doesn't suffer from some of the problems
of the Lead Acid battery, but the cell has to be sealed from the atmosphere (otherwise,
the caustic electrolyte absorbs Carbon Dioxide from the air and reacts with it).

Are there other alternative battery technologies?

Dave

P.S. My Significant Other's brother's daughter's husband works in the alternative energy
field.

[Derek Eggers]

I love the idea of an off-grid living room. I've become very interested in wood-gas generators.  I'm sure there are some significant downsides (maybe deforestation for one), but they seem pretty easy to build and might serve as a good installation on our part.  

There are a lot of examples on YouTube, here is one I like:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYGKn12Weu4

-Derek

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