A white cargo van drives over a black asphalt road. An "x-ray" illustration shows the inductive coils inside the road as it drives over them.

Charging While Driving Now Possible In Michigan

December 14, 2023 by Navarre Bartz 66 Comments

Heavy vehicles like semi trucks pose a bigger challenge in electrifying the transportation fleet than smaller, more aerodynamic passenger cars. Michigan now has the first public in-road charging system in the United States to help alleviate this concern. [via Electrek]

Electreon, a company already active in Europe, won the contract to provide for the inductive coil-based charging system at the new Michigan Central Station research campus. Initial runs will be with a Ford E-Transit for testing, but there are plans to actually allow public use along the one mile (1.6 km) route in the near future.

Vehicles using the system need a special receiver, so we hope we’ll be seeing an open standard develop instead of having to have a different receiver for each road you drive on. This seems like it would be a more onerous swap than having to have three different toll road transponders. Unfortunately, the page about wireless standards on the Electreon website currently 404s, but CharIN, the standards body behind the Combined Charging Standard (CCS) did just launch a task force for wireless power delivery in September.

If you’re curious about other efforts at on-road charging, check out this slot car system in Sweden or another using pantographs.

A dark brown bench suspended between two white and grey rectangular pillars. They are capped in the same brown HDPE material. Aluminum uprights go to a curved solar panel roof that looks somewhat similar to a paragliding chute. The bench is inside a clean-looking workshop with two large toolboxes against a plywood half wall.

Public Power, WiFi, And Shelter

December 13, 2023 by Navarre Bartz 39 Comments

In the US, we’re starting to see some pushback against hostile architecture, and in this vein, [benhobby] built a swanky public power and Wi-Fi access point.

This beautiful piece of infrastructure has 400 watts of solar plugged into 1.2 kWh of battery storage, and can dispense those electrons through any of its 120 VAC, USB-C, or USB-A plugs. The uprights are 3″ aluminum tubing attached to a base consisting of cinder blocks and HDPE panels. Power receptacles are housed in 3D printed enclosures with laser cut acrylic fronts. Three outdoor lights illuminate the stop at night, triggered by a photosensor.

The electronics and battery for the system, including the networking hardware, are in a weatherproof box on each side that can be quickly disconnected allowing field swaps of the hardware. Troubleshooting can then take place back at a workshop. One of the units has already been deployed and has been well-received. [benhobby] reports “There’s one in the wild right now, and it gets plenty of visitors but no permanent tenants.”

Want to see some more interesting hacks for public infrastructure? Check out this self-cooling bus stop, this bus bloom filter, or this public transit display.

Monitoring Energy Use And Saving Money

November 29, 2023 by Bryan Cockfield 23 Comments

On the surface, the electric grid might seem like a solved piece of infrastructure. But there’s actually been a large amount of computerized modernization going in the background for the past decade or so. At a large scale this means automatic control of the grid, but for some electric utility customers like [Alex] this means the rates for electricity can change every hour based on demand. By keeping an eye on the current rate, you can extract the most value from these utilities.

[Alex] is located in the United Kingdom and has an energy provider whose rates can change every half hour. This information is freely available well enough in advance to download the data and display it visibly in with a NeoPixel LED ring around a clock. The colors displayed by the LEDs represent an increase or decrease in price for the corresponding time and allow him to better plan out the household’s energy use for the day. The clock uses a TinyPICO ESP32 module to gather the data and handle the clock display. A second wall-mounted device shows real-time energy readings for both gas and electricity using two old analog voltmeters modified to display kilowatt-hours.

While not everyone has a utility which allows this sort of granularity with energy pricing, having one can make a bit of a difference as electricity rates under this system can sometimes go negative. [Alex] estimates that using these two displays to coordinate his energy usage has saved around £50 a month. Even if your utility offers minimal or no price adjustments for time-of-use, it’s still a good idea to monitor energy use in your home. Here’s a fairly comprehensive project that does that without modifying any existing wiring.

Airloom’s Whacky Wind Clothesline Turbine Idea

November 26, 2023 by Maya Posch 53 Comments

What if you don’t put airfoils on a central, spinning axis, but instead have them careen around a circular track? If you’re a company called Airloom, you’d say that it’s a very cheap, very efficient and highly desirable way to install wind-based generators that can do away with those unsightly and massive 100+ meter tall wind turbines, whether on- or offshore. Although grand claims are made, and venture capital firms have poured in some money, hard data is tough to find on their exact design, or the operating details of their one and only claimed kW-level prototype.

Transpower's 'flying clothesline' wind turbine setup. — Transpower’s ‘flying clothesline’ wind turbine setup.

Despite the claims made by Airloom, they’re not the first to have this idea, with Transpower in the 1980s making itself famous with their ‘flying clothesline’ that featured a continuous loop of sails tensioned between two ropes. These ran around a pole on either end with each having a generator for a claimed total of 200 kW. Ultimately Transpower seems to have gone under along with many other wind power pioneers of the era as they couldn’t make their idea economically feasible. Something which is a definite trend in the field.

Some parts about Airloom’s design are definitely concerning, with the available images showing each airfoil running along a central rail on a number of wheels and with their ‘Power Takeoff’ (i.e. generator) not defined in any meaningful manner. Here is where [Robert Murray-Smith] had a bit of fun in a recent video, creating his own dual-chain version that somewhat resembles a mixture between the Transpower and Airloom designs. He also put the design up on Thingiverse for others to 3D print and tinker with, requiring a handful of bearings for smooth running.

For the power takeoff, [Robert] suggests that in his design the cogs around which the chain moves could be attached to a generator (like in the Transpower design), but he could see no indication of how Airloom intends to do this. Feel free to put your own speculations in the comments. And if you’re from Airloom, show us the details!

Continue reading “Airloom’s Whacky Wind Clothesline Turbine Idea” →

Agate Light Twinkles Just Right

November 23, 2023 by Kristina Panos 3 Comments

Mother Nature is often a cruel mistress, but what can you do? You’ve got to make the best of what she gives you. This lovely little light was born from death — the death of a pine tree, that is, that was killed by beetles boring large holes inside.

When [Craig Lindley]’s friends gave him some slices of that pine tree, he knew he had to make a blinkenlights thing out of it. The next step was to procure slices of agate, and from the top of Pike’s Peak, no less.

Each slice of agate has three RGB LEDs behind it, and these are controlled by an ESP32. There’s also a PIR sensor that detects people and gives them a show. More specifically, it runs through several patterns at random speeds up and down the piece.

The agate slices are embedded in the wood, which [Craig] achieved first with a Dremel, and then with a router when the Dremel proved difficult. After some troubles with resin and an unfortunate mishap with a rag, [Craig] ended up with a beautiful light with which to dazzle his friends, especially the ones who gave him the pine slice.

You know we love blinkenlights; you see them here all the time. Did you know you can use them to keep time?

Underwater Kites Buoying The Prospect Of More Tidal Power Generation

November 15, 2023 by Maya Posch 7 Comments

Swedish start-up Minesto has been for years trying to float the idea of having underwater turbines that generate power for use on-shore. These would be anchored to the seafloor by a long tether and move around in figure-of-eight patterns like a kite, which would increase the flow over the turbine’s blades. After a few years of trials, its 1.2 MW Dragon 12 kite will now be installed off the coast of the Faroe Islands.

Previously, Minesto had installed its much smaller DG500 (0.5 MW) kite turbine at Holyhead Deep, in Wales, where a single unit has been tested at a depth of between 65 and 91 meters. So far, only this unit has seen continuous operation. As noted in the linked Tethys report, this one unit was not connected to the grid, and research on its environmental impact is still ongoing as of September 2022. The main concerns are how it might affect cetaceans (whales, dolphins, etc.), including potential collisions with these as well as diving birds who might end up diving in the midst of a swarm of kites moving about at fairly high speeds.

One of the proposed Minesto Dragon 12 kite array installation sites at the Faroe Islands. (Credit: Minesto)

Although by itself putting a turbine into the much stronger and energetic ocean currents – not to mention near-continuous – makes sense, the marine environment is a tough one to survive. The DG500 prototype has seen a few years of use, but this would be the first large-scale deployment of such a system and thus the first significant long-term durability test. The goal at the Faroe Islands is to install 120 MW of capacity, across four kite groups, joining the smaller Dragon 4 (0.4 MW) unit that was grid-connected in May of last year.

Depending on the results, including the economics, this technology could prove to be either much better and cheaper than off-shore wind turbines, or turn out to be saddled with fundamental flaws that has plagued previous attempts to make use of the strong currents and tides that make the world’s oceans and seas into one of Nature’s most impressive sights.