Gadgets

[two dogs]

I thought I'd start a thread on gadgets, as I received this this afternoon:

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It's a 5W solar panel (18cm x 24 cm). I'll be attaching in to my daypack for my 14 day/223 km Larapinta End-to-End walk in July next year, so that I'll be able to keep my phone charged, mainly for taking photos (I'll also take my digital SLR camera, but expect to use the phone most of the time).

PanelOnBackpack.jpg (215.76 KiB) Viewed 2668 times

I also have a 3,350mAh power pack that clips to the back, that I can charge during the day, then use to charge my phone during the evening (which will be more convenient than charging my phone directly from the panel. There are higher capacity power packs available, but the others would stick out too far from the back of the panel

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[two dogs]

I came across this gadget via one of my RSS feeds and have backed it on Kickstarter. It has well and truly reached its funding goal, with 16 days to go, so I expect to receive it in October as advertisted.

[stylofone]

It's a 5W solar panel

I have a folding solar panel from the same manufacturer. I only used it once in the real world, on a two night camping sojourn. I didn't give it enough sun to keep my phone charged. You might need to mount the panel so it's not covered by the straps, and so it is perpendicular to sunlight, to maximise its efficiency.

[two dogs]

...
You might need to mount the panel so it's not covered by the straps, and so it is perpendicular to sunlight, to maximise its efficiency.

Indeed, I'll do some testing, with other mounting orientations. The spider bungee on the Lowe Alpine pack is the simplest way to mount it for quick removal for optimal orientation of it on any breaks, during what will probably be long days in the sun.

[two dogs]

...
You might need to mount the panel so it's not covered by the straps, and so it is perpendicular to sunlight, to maximise its efficiency.

Indeed, I'll do some testing, with other mounting orientations. The spider bungee on the Lowe Alpine pack is the simplest way to mount it for quick removal for optimal orientation of it on any breaks, during what will probably be long days in the sun.

Mounting it using little carabiners is probably the way to go.

CarabinerBackMounted.jpg (238.53 KiB) Viewed 2630 times

As this is mounted at the back of the top of the daypack, it will be in a more horizontal orientation when there's something packed in it!

CaribinerTopMounted.jpg (237.45 KiB) Viewed 2630 times

I was impressed that in a test yesterday morning, the power pack was charged around 25% in an hour in this orientation, starting at 8:30 am.

ChargingTest.jpg (211.09 KiB) Viewed 2630 times

[stylofone]

I've inherited an unwanted automatic coffee machine. It is a behemoth. At first I felt threatened by its imposing bulk and Jetsons-like automation, but I've decided to give it a try. It came without a manual and the first thing I discovered was that the flashing light was saying "descale me!". I was craving caffeine so I made a cup with my old machine to cope with that challenge, but now it is all set up ready for tomorrow morning. It even grinds the beans.

[Irrev-Black]

A safety reminder: be very careful about fucking round with lithium batteries.

They burn like a beaut, and water does not extinguish the fire.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-27/ ... /102781502

[Irrev-Black]

CO2 monitor with simple, understandable, analogue display...



https://laughingsquid.com/birdie-air-quality-monitor/

[stylofone]

i have two Raspberry Pis, one for NAS and one for Media Centre, but it's overkill. I just merged them. I was planning some sort of major overhaul with a new OS, but then I came up with a simpler plan. All I had to do was unplug the powered USB hub with the two NAS drives, and move it over to the Media Centre. It's running the LibreELEC OS, and it seems to just work.

I love it when that happens to Linux. I always hated it when Apple claimed their shit just works, it was too often an Apple lie, or it came at the expense of features I wanted.

I also found a good way to hang my projector screen. The test video is Dune. It needs a couple of refinements, but the hard part is done. Actually it wasn't that hard, I just stuck a few hooks around the window and hung the screen. If I had to hang it from the ceiling it would have been hard, but it's not necessary.

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[stylofone]

Most of the time my media player is just for music, and I hated having a great big TV switched on, so I bought a little HDMI monitor. It's powered by a USB-C port and has HDMI input. It's good for Raspberry pi in other settings too.

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