$4 volt meter from a dollar store pedometer

pedo

[Paulo]'s got a few solar panels on his shed, and while he does have a fairly nice setup with a battery charge controller, he found himself looking around for a panel voltmeter. Of course you can buy a panel voltmeter for under $20, but [Paulo] wanted something that fit his 4-4-4 plan; his voltmeter should cost under $4, draw less than 4mA, and last for 4 years. The jury is still out on the 4 year … [Read more...]

DIY coil winding machine

This will probably be more useful to custom speaker builders, but coil winding has always been a bit tedious. [iwicom] put together a simple coil winder using a hand drill, a magnet, a reed switch that triggers a pedometer. Aside from the coil winder, I love the idea of using the pedometer as a cheap event counter. … [Read more...]