It all looks a bit small actually up on the railing. 15w is enough to run my security camera from battery power and do the occasional top off of my 12" powerbook, I think a 60w panel would make a nice addition for now, maybe eventually get a few of those. Current plans include a 12v power line run up into the attic so I can get supply to my desk, and putting the entire security camera server on battery power with a DC-DC power supply.

I picked up a 15w solar panel and related hardware to play around a little with solar power. I still need to mount the panel somewhere better as its currently sitting on my back deck soaking up power to charge the boat battery I picked up the other night (Deep cycle marine battery, 115 amp hours) In full sun I seem to get enough power to charge my old powerbook and still have current to spare to top off the marine battery.




Pictured is the battery, charging controller (so the battery doesn't overcharge, explode, etc) and my multi-meter monitoring the charge. Yes I know that the clips are on the wrong colored terminals...my socket adapter is wired backwards compared to the clips which were designed to attach to the solar panel so I had to clip them this way to get the right polarity.

I was heading down to RI last night to pick up a friend and encountered a great summary about VW drivers. A black GTI turbo came up along side, gave a couple honks and a thumbs up out of his window and zoomed off.

Still on a bit of a brewing kick, working on upgrading the thermal controls for my lagering chest, currently its being controlled by an older freezer thermostat but I'm working on installing a surplus industrial PID temperature controller. Just waiting on the solid state relays to actually control the freezer motor.

Finally got around to brewing another batch, this time with video:

Fermentation

My good friend Hali was visiting for the week between concert gigs and informed me that iMovie now has a time lapse record function, so what better way to test this than to watch some yeast turn wort into beer.