One of my work projects this summer was developing a website for an office complex in downtown Anchorage that just got a huge solar retrofit. The building now has 96 solar panels on its south wall that are rated at 180W each. The system has a potential output of 17.28 kW!

Along with building the website, I installed the monitoring hardware and software for the solar system. This keeps track of how much energy is being produced in real-time. A lot of the monitoring data is on the website, and it updates as often as every 10 minutes.

The website is nearly complete. The last thing being developed is a custom graphing system for the solar power data. The current graphs on the Solar Power Output page are provided by the software that comes with the monitoring hardware. Unfortunately these are not very appealing visually, and they aren’t as flexible as I’d like. The new graphs will be gorgeous.

Take a look at www.AnchorageSolarBuilding.com!

     

The solar panel is flexible and encased in fabric, so it’s very durable. The output is 13.5Watts. The battery is also very durable and has 50 Watt-hours of capacity. As a reference point, the iPad 2 battery is 25Watt-Hour, and the iPad will run for 10 hours on that. So this battery pack could hypothetically power the iPad for 20 hours from a full charge; that 20 hours doesn’t factor in more charge coming from the solar panel.

The Goal0 team has been extremely helpful in getting me a great setup for the road trip. This panel and battery will also be practical for charging my MacBook Pro on the go or at home.

Fast, my speedometer app for iPhone, has been approved and is now in the App Store!

Fast has a beautiful interface. There is both a digital readout and a classic speedometer gauge. Along with being a great speedometer, Fast will also keep track of your top speed. You can put your iPhone in your pocket while skiing, snowboarding, biking or anything – and check how fast you’ve gone once you are done.

I was skiing with my father and some friends today. We used the Top Speed feature to track ourselves. I was able to clock 44MPH. My dad’s friend hit 56MPH. (I’m just getting back on skis after snowboarding for 11 years).

Want a free download of Fast? Just let me know and I’ll get you a promotional code. All you have to do is leave a review once you’ve tried the app!

Until just recently, the paid and free versions of PhotoRotate were not very different. The free version had ads, and the paid version did not. I wanted to add something that would give our paying users more of an experience, and simply show all of our users that we’re continuing to support the apps.

Now, the space in the free version that is occupied by ads, has become a functions toolbar in the paid version. Users can select between rotating, adjusting the brightness, and adjusting the contrast of their images. Triple the feature set!

Along with the added functions in the paid version, both the paid and free versions now have a Save menu. This menu lets users Email their edited image, Copy it to the Clipboard for sending in Text messages, or simply save it to their Photo Library.

This update has been a big project. Now, we’re settling back in to focus on The Helicopter.

We have a new app in the mix. This one is a game, and it’s called The Helicopter.

The Helicopter has a great story behind it and a bunch of neat features that I think will make it one of the best games in the App Store. I can’t say TOO much about gameplay yet, but we just got the official app website set up at TheHelicopterApp.com. You can also check our updates on Twitter at @helicopterapp.

As we progress in development the website will be host to game screenshots, explaining our progress, discussions about features, recruiting beta testers, and more. If you’re interested, make sure to follow the twitter feed or the RSS from the website.

I’m working very hard on The Helicopter, as are my teammates Ben and Connor. We’re dedicated to making a kickass game for the iPhone and iPod touch.

The website for Green iPhone officially launched today. Take a look, and feel free to send feedback through the Contact form on the website!

Recently I’ve started working on two big projects. The first is Green iPhone, an iPhone recycling company. It spurred out of my casual iPhone sales on Craigslist and it has developed into a working business model. Green iPhone has an iPhone Buy-Back program that buys used/broken iPhones from individuals and companies. On the flip side, we have a sales portal on the Green iPhone website where we sell professionally refurbished iPhones.

Green iPhone is just starting, and it has been a magnificent experience so far. Our full website will launch on November 1st 2010. You’ll be able to find it here. Here’s our logo:

The second project to mention is iPhone App development. My first applications, PhotoRotate and PhotoRotate Free were approved by Apple and put into the App Store this Monday. PhotoRotate is simple app, and the title should make it self explanatory. Unfortunately the iPhone’s operating system, iOS, does not have a photo rotating function built in. With all of the pictures that I take for eBay (I take them at interesting angles sometimes), I end up with incorrectly oriented images a LOT. I wanted a solution, and none of the rotating Apps in the store looked good enough for me.

PhotoRotate seemed like a great App to do some ice-breaking with. And it was! I got a great development team together, and we put together a really polished and intuitive photo rotator. I’m happy to say that the apps are in the store, and they are doing quite well. – My support page for PhotoRotate is actually on this site, here.

Now we’re moving on to much more complex Apps. There is a full-featured game in the works, and I think it’s going to be phenomenal. I will post an update when it’s complete.

That’s it for now!

]]> http://www.brennanzelener.com/projects/feed 0 http://www.brennanzelener.com/solar-macbook-pondering http://www.brennanzelener.com/solar-macbook-pondering#comments Sat, 20 Mar 2010 03:52:54 +0000 Brennan http://www.brennanzelener.com/?p=197 In my last post I discussed the feasibility of a 34Watt solar panel for charging portable electronics. One of the main points that I made was the charge times: With a custom 34W panel, you’re looking at about 2.5 hours to fully charge a MacBook Pro battery.

I started talking about these numbers with my roommate today. I mentioned that the MBP battery lasts a good 5 to 6 hours on casual use. This means that with a 34W panel, you could successfully USE AND CHARGE (simultaneously) a MacBookPro with that solar panel. If you dropped the panel in size to a 17Watt, you would be looking at a 5hour time for full charge. – But that means that you could use the laptop while charging, and essentially counteract the battery’s ‘uncharging’!

A 17W panel could be made small. Maybe as small as my MacBook Pro’s lid. Exciting…

This is a collection of theoretical data and calculations for the charge times and feasibility of using a custom 40W solar panel to charge Apple products.

To make the most efficient charger, I want to use specific solar cells in my panel. Each device has a different charging voltage, and for efficiency sake I want to get as close to that voltage as possible with my solar cells. This is because, when I regulate my panel to the voltage I need for charging, the excess voltage is being given off as heat. If I’m regulating down a lot, I have to be concerned about heat sinks, and my panel is even bigger than I need it to be. Stupid, right?

For example, my MacBook Pro’s AC Adapter puts out 16.5Volts at 3.65Amps. If I make a 40Watt solar cell array that puts out 20Volts @ 2Amps, and then I regulate it down to 16.5Volts, I’ll be loosing (assuming my DC regulator works at 90% efficiency) – (90% * 2Amps = 1.8Amps) .2 amps for every volt that I’m outputting. This means that instead of having a 40Watt panel, I’ll actually have a 1.8*16.5 = 29.7Watt panel when everything is said and done. And that’s just from the efficiency of the regulator!

When you factor in the 3.5Volts that are being regulated away, you have (3.5*1.8 = 6.3) 6.3Watts that are being given off as heat. That’s hot and unnecessary.

So, lets say that I get my panel to put out 17Volts at 2Amps. That would be a 34W panel. I would only be loosing (.5*1.8) .9Watts to heat, and I’ll have a smaller panel in the long run. After using a 90% efficient regulator, you pull 10% off that 34W (3.4W) and you have a panel that puts out 30.6W in full sunlight. Then, shave off the .9Watts that is lost to heat and you have 29.7W again. That would take (73/29.7 = 2.46) a bit less than 2.5 hours to fully charge my MacBook Pro from a completely dead state. Not too shabby.

You can see that the best way to increase efficiency is by finding the closest voltage possible and then bringing up the amperage. That’s why it’s important that you choose the best wiring circuit for your panel! (Series or Parallel)

Here are some stats for the batteries in the newest Apple products. You can see how this hypothetical 34W panel would run them.

For the iPad and iPhone, the input voltages are completely different.

I think you can safely charge an iPhone with 5Volts at a 1Amp maximum. 5V is the USB standard, and our computers put out .5Amps at that 5V. Not wanting to go too much higher than that for the iPhone, you could make a 4.5W panel at 6V and .75Amps – regulated down to 5V @ .75A that would charge the phone fully in 72 minutes.

As for the iPad, we’ll have to see what the input voltage is when it comes out!