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The SunCat Batteries - DIY prototypes

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Rechargeable Batteries with Solar Cells Project by Knut Karlsen At home i always have some batteries lying around, either rechargeable or normal ones. Usually they are empty, but i'd like them to be always fully charged. I could use a normal charger and there is a lot of solar devices that charge rechargeable batteries. I wanted it simpler; why hasn't anyone made a battery with integrated solar cells? The idea of the "SunCat" batteries where born. The batteries should just bask in the sun like a cat and left for a while, in a sunny window, they would slowly recharge. Prototypes During my research for my diploma i was in touch with scientists at IFE that experimented with the production of flexible solar cells. They where kind enough to send me some samples in the right dimensions that i could use for the prototypes (full set at flickr ): I had some older NiMH rechargeable batteries that i glued the flexible Photo Voltaic (PV) cells onto. The PV cells are rated at
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Energy Dashboards in the Wild

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Energy Monitoring The more I dig into this material, the more I find people and companies that are developing ideas on energy managment. Living in Norway and looking into this field has some disadvantages: Awareness to energy consumption and systems to increase awareness are almost non existing. Utilities stopped charging for over use and peak consumption a long time ago and since then people have had few incentives for tracking those parameters. Regulations, such as mandatory smart meter installations, are very important for change on a big scale in energy infrastructure at the moment. The previous post targeted independent initiatives to enable people to track their energy consumption and the reduce bill or carbon footprint. Barack Obama throwing money at energy initiatives these days could account for some of google's interest. I conducted a search mission for the energy companies endeavours in the home monitoring market: Energy Dashboards The utilities that either have automat
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Bagheera

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Bagheera: Black Panther living in the jungle and watches over Mowgli in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book . Also, the spider Bagheera Kiplingi in the genus of jumping spiders are named after the author of The Jungle Books. Bagheera is the name of my premier concept this week. It is a concept that fits well with previous research into RFID and everyday objects and connected products . This is a work in progress, so i might not be crystal clear in my thoughts and explanation yet, but i'll get there. The basic concept is this: Gunnar is at home and finds himself wanting to take some pictures for his blog . He pics up his phone, grabs his camera, a pair of shades, a nice cap and looking through the window, he decides to bring an umbrella. While doing this he momentarily touches each object with his phone. Knut (Me) on the other side of town is working hard on my concept (this) at school. To get some distraction i glance on my "bagheera" wich is running on my phone. P
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