Solar Panels

Wow, it's been 5 months since I posted last. I really got to get back on the blogging thing again.


Quick update, I've finished the first year of my Master's. I'm not doing particularly well or even as well as I'd hoped. I just finished a module in RF design and Digital Systems Design 2. I had 6 assignments for RF and 2 large assignments and a IEEE paper to write for Digital Systems Design 2. I may upload some of these at a later date, once I clean them up, improve on them and then I can use them as part of my very own portfolio.

Last year I bought a number of broken photovoltaic cells for about $20 on ebay and I never got around to using them, due to lack of time and space to do so. So on last Tuesday night, I finally got around to starting it all. In the picture at the top of this post, you can see my test setup. I built the wood panel from 1 90cm x 60cm hard back board, 2 x 90cm rails and 2 x 45 cm rails. I've left gaps on either side for wires to come out, in case I want to place plexiglass on top to use outside.




Now as you can see in the picture on the left here, I've made quite a stupid mistake here. I've wired the solar cells in parallel, instead of in series. This means that the voltage will only be a fraction of the total possible voltage and this fraction decreases with every cell I attach. For two cells, 1/V(total) = 1/V1 + 1/V2, which is halved for two cells, a third for three and so on. Currently the measured voltage indoors under a fluorescent light is about 150mV and 20mA, which is nowhere near the results I need. I went out this morning to see what my new 3 cell panel would work and I got a reading of 565mV with 150mA. Much better, but still way below what I was expecting. By placing the cells in series, The voltage will be additive and the more cells I add, the greater the voltage will be.



Tonight, I think I'm going to keep my parallel 3-cell and I'll build a 3-cell series as well so that I can compare the results and show the difference between the two.

I'll have more on this over the next few days, watch this space.

Fallout: New Vegas

So I got Fallout: New Vegas for Christmas and with exams and assignments and all that crap, I only got a chance to play it for the first time properly over the weekend. I'm hooked.

It carries on from the world of Fallout 3, except now you're travelling the Mojave desert after the nuclear apocalypse. You start off as a courier having been dug up from a fresh grave and revived by the local doctor. Your mission, find the package that you were nearly killed trying to deliver.

It's quite different to Fallout 3, I feel it's lost some of it's personal touch with none of that find your daddy stuff from Fallout 3, but after playing most the weekend, I've found this has made it better in this aspect. There's a number of different factions and if you complete missions for one group, you'll acquire fame and they'll like you more. Kind of like the system they had in Grand Theft Auto. When you acquire a companion to follow you through the Wasteland/Mojave desert, there's a companion wheel type of thing, similar to what I've seen in Crysis, however it's awkward to use and is quite often a pain to use.

It is quite different to Fallout 3 in some places, where it almost seems like Obsidian had decided to add in features from Borderlands, Grand Theft Auto, Duke Nukem(hookers and gambling) and Crysis. All of which are great games, so that's all good. But there's also a degree of realism with the Hardcore mode, where ammo has weight, you gain realistic experience and you don't get to feel invincible once you gain sufficient levels. Also in Hardcore mode, you suffer from hunger, dehydration, sleep and all the other effects from Fallout 3. This gives a realistic feel as you can drink crazy drinks that keep you awake longer but effect you in other ways, almost like drinking a Red Bull in real life, sure it makes you awake now, but it will also dehydrate you. It can get annoying every now and again, but an interesting game dynamic to work with.

It's not all shooting, but shooting isn't the only fun you get to have. You get to play BlackJack, Roulette, Slot machines and Caravan(a wasteland card game).

One weird thing I've noticed, either I'm doing something wrong in the game, but I've come across a few of the women who openly tell me that they're lesbians. Dunno whether to take that as a good thing or a bad thing. It definitely seems like a more adult geared game than Fallout 3 did. This one ain't really for the kiddies. In saying that, it's still harmless.

If you liked Fallout 3, then you'll like this game. I really recommend it. It is far better than the DLC's for Fallout 3, which were good in their own right, but New Vegas is a solid game in and of itself. Another thing I enjoyed was that I got the retail game but I was able to install it through Steam which made me smile :D

Oooh, LRDIMM's

Found this online, Load-Reduced DIMM's. They're the next step after RDIMM's (Registered DIMM's) and FBDIMM's (Fully Buffered DIMM's), offering even more bandwidth and speed to your system.

Read more here What is LR-DIMM?

Purchasing Music to download

For some strange reason, I'm finding it hard to purchase a copy of the Tron legacy Soundtrack for download. I don't want the CD and CD case cluttering up my already messy room. I've tried the official Tron Legacy sountrack website http://tronsoundtrack.com/. I can only download the soundtrack if I live in the US. For european sales it's CD only. I tried Amazon, there's geographical restrictions if you're not based in the UK. Not to mention, even if you are a UK citizen and travelling abroad, these restrictions apply as it is based on your IP address.

I've done a quick Google search for downloading a copy of the soundtrack and the only option I have is to use iTunes which I will not install as I've trouble with it before and I don't like using it. Surely they have some competition?? I can't believe in this age of the internet that if I want music I still have to purchase the CD and rip it to MP3 on my PC or just download it illegally.

Why is it harder to download legally than it is to do it illegally? And when I say hard it's next to impossible. This is just retarded!

Exams coming soon

Apologies I haven't written here in ages. I thought it would be a good idea to do a Masters in Electronic Design Engineering. It has so far swallowed up all my free time. I've learned loads though. I've completed 2 Digital Designs, 1 for a simple sequence detect on a wire interface, the other on an auto-baud rate detector using Finite State Machines, Flow Charts, Timing diagrams and Design Flow Diagrams. It's been hard, it's been very hard. I've 3 more assignments due in at the moment. 1 of these has been running a lot later than I ever intended.

My exams start next week, Tuesday and Thursday and I really don't feel prepared enough to get the best grade that I think I can get. Best get the head down and sort that out.

The two modules I've undertaken are Digital Design and Software Engineering. For my software engineering module, we've just covered the basics of Object Orientated Programming with some Design and Architecture. I've completed a number of labs demonstrating the basic principles. It's the two main assignments that I'm proud of. The 1st one an FIR/IIR Filter which takes an input, applies a formula based on a text file input and outputs the various results into an output file. In effect the FIR filter removes any signal above 10KHz. Filter program is written in C++ using Microsoft Visual Studio 2008. See below for results. I think I saturated my IIR filter and the equation need some work, however I proved the filter works.
The top signal is the initial input signal, produced by 3 sine waves of varying frequencies. The second signal is the result of the FIR filter and the third wave is the result of the IIR Filter.


My 2nd program was written in Java. I basically had to write from scratch an emboss filter with a vertical edge detect filter and output the results. See below for initial image, emboss and vertical edge detect. I don't think my code was perfect, but it was close enough.

I have Internet at home again!

It was brilliant, last night I logged into my new apartment's UPC broadband connection. It was incredible, I'd forgotten how great it was to have a decent connection. I've been on the 3 USB dongle for over 2 years now and I was used to it's slow ways and 15GB a month limit. Now I'm on UPC's 15Mb/s with no limit! Incredible! I updated all my games last night, downloaded the latest episodes of Chuck and Castle and then Skyped my lovely girlfriend Ciara for about an hour without any connection issues. I love it!

High and Low Density RAM

I was cleaning my room and I found the High Density DDR2 DIMM's that I bought a while ago. They're 2GB DIMM's they work grand. They just don't work with my PC. I know I've already discussed this before, but I found some new information online explaining why manufcturers make this high density DIMM's in the first place.

Here's a very helpful explanation about High Density DIMM's.

iceblade008 ->

It costs memory manufacturers almost the same to produce Low Density 1GB modules which have 100% compatibility with all systems on the market, comparing to producing high density 1GB modules. So why would manufacturers be so foolish to produce high density 1GB modules which only have 10% compatibility with systems on the market? The reason is simple, because high density 1GB modules are mainly manufacturing process rejects/seconds that cannot be made as a low density modules. It is very much like Intel CPU, those CPU that cannot be made as Pentium 4 CPU become a slower bus Celeron CPU instead, by a down-binning process.

Read the rest of the article on Overclock.net's forums here

Here's my original post about High and Low Density DIMM's