How I eliminated junk mail

Several years ago, I decided to tackle our junk mail issue.  Our mailbox was filled with catalogs and other junk mail every day and I realize this amounted to an enormous amount of waste despite the fact that I recycled everything.   The idea of cutting down trees, printing catalogs and mailing them to a recipient who immediately disposes of them is the epitome of an unsustainable reality and I wanted no part of it.

I took several approaches to eliminating junk mail.   First, I subscribed to the TrustedID - one of several direct mail preference services and entered my preferences on their website.  This organization effectively handles the rest for you, here is what they say on their webpage:
We act on your behalf to protect your consumer rights and get your opt-outs processed. You can keep track of your opt-outs, and if you receive the mail again, we will follow up. We work with over 8,000 companies — and the largest data brokers — to honor your choices and protect your privacy. We have processed over 25 million opt-outs by over 1.7 million account holders. 

The direct mail industry also offers another option known as the National Do Not Mail List.  Both are good examples of an industry policing themselves in order to reduce their own costs.   Here is how they explain their service:
As direct marketers ourselves, we know that mail-order companies don't want to waste their money sending mail to people who don't want to receive it.

They'll gladly take your name off their lists when they're asked to do so. But with countless mail-order companies doing business today, you just can't contact enough of them on your own to make a difference. The postage alone would cost a fortune!

A similar option is available from DMAchoice.org  which also offers an option for reducing junk email.

Incidentally, if you have not already signed up with the National Do Not Call Registry - a service of the Federal Trade Commission, you can certainly reduce the number of telemarketing phone calls that way.  I have signed up for that service, but occasionally get solicitation phone calls.  The way to eliminate these is to refer to their caller ID and call them back, many of them offer an option of "press 1 to be removed from our calling list", and if not some of them will connect to an actual person who will remove you from their list if you ask nicely.  I feel that is important to be polite when asking to be removed - the person you are talking to is not the bad guy here, just an employee.

Finally, when all else fails I made a simple rubber stamp that prints the following:

please remove
from your mailing list
thanks

This is particularly useful when they provide you with a postage free return envelope.  All I do is remove the return section, stamp it next to my address and stick it in their envelope.  They get the message eventually!

I also reduce mail in general by paying most of my bills electronically either through direct debit or paying through the company's web portal.  Also, over 95% of my income comes in via PayPal rather than my clients mailing checks to me.  This includes the consulting income for my electronic product design business and the solar energy products that I manufacture and market over the web.

At this point I can honestly say that we rarely get any junk mail whatsoever.  We still do get a few catalogs and mailings from companies we do business with - such as the friendly oil change reminder/sales flyer from our car dealers etc.

According to another junk mail reducing web site: www.41pounds.org: "the average adult receives 41 pounds of junk mail each year of which 44% goes to the landfill unopened" (or hopefully it is recycled).  They have more statistics that make the idea of reducing this waste very compelling.  They have a $35.00 one-time fee and use $10 to support effective non-profits like Habitat for Humanity.

If more of us took this simple action, we could have a significant impact.

Conserving water with a circulation pump

Like many houses, our master bathroom is at the far end of the house from the water heater.  A total of about 45 feet of copper pipe that must be heated before hot water arrives at the faucet.  This takes from 80 seconds in the summer to over 2 minutes in the winter, and wastes a lot of water and energy used to heat it.  When I learned about a clever pump made by ACT, Inc., I decided to install it right away.

The principle is that a pump is installed under the sink that pulls hot water up to the pump, and returns it back down the cold water pipe to the water heater at the press of a button.  The 54 Watt pump shuts off as soon as sufficiently hot water is present.  Each time you need hot water you just press a button and wait half a minute while the water is sent back to the water heater tank instead of down the drain.  The pump shuts off at a pre-set temperature.

 

This system differs from other designs that constantly circulate hot water through the plumbing to keep it available at all the faucets constantly.  I don't  recommend that type of system as it actually wastes energy, both at the pump and due to radiated heat loss from the plumbing which acts as a defacto radiator in the walls of your house.
The D'Mand system reduces waste and saves energy in 3 ways:

• reduces the use of our 1500 Watt 240Volt  well pump.
• reduces the need to heat water that would just go to waste down the drain.
• reduces waste water entering our septic system.

The only drawback is that the pump requires electricity under the sink, which requires wiring in a new (GFCI protected) outlet in most cases.  The basic pump and controls sell for about $400, plus some plumbing parts.  So the installed parts cost was around $500.

The installation of the pump is quite simple.  After shutting off the water supply and draining the lines to the sink, the faucet shut offs are removed.  A tee is inserted, and the shut-off is replaced.  Then the 2 flexible lines to the pump are installed onto the new tee thread.  This took me about 20 minutes.

I am an experienced plumber so I had no trouble installing the pump.  Any plumber would also find this a simple installation.

The challenging part is that an electric outlet is required under the sink.  The nearest outlet in our bathroom is off to the right.  So I made a run to the hardware store to get a bunch of Wiremold (surface wiring conduit) parts.  Then I added a breakout box on top of the existing outlet and ran Wiremold channel across and down into the space under the sink where I installed a new outlet for the pump.  This part took over 3 hours!

 
I also made an attractive circular white acrylic switch plate, and used a stainless steel push button.

Once the button is pressed the pump turns on immediately and shuts off automatically as soon as it senses hot water at the pump.  This saves several gallons of water that would otherwise run down the drain, and reduces the usage of our tankless water heater.  In our home the cold line returns to the bottom our solar storage tank where the sun heats it up for free.

Before the pump was installed it would take 80 seconds for the hot water to arrive, now the pump brings it up in about 50 seconds after pressing the button, and the water runs hot from the faucet within a few seconds.  They also make a motion sensor that will turn the pump on automatically when you enter the bathroom (or kitchen).  Here is the accessories page.

This system is relatively expensive and I don't expect a payback any time soon.  This is something I did as part of my commitment to living sustainably using technology.  I admit it may not be for everyone.

Stiftelse av tankesmien

Da olje- og energiminister Terje Riis-Johansen 12. februar 2020 besøkte NTNU og SINTEF i anledning uttdelingen av de nye forskningssentrene for miljøvennlig energi (FME), hadde han med seg en utfordring til studentene. Olje- og energidepartementet (OED) ønsket å gi studenter og unge forskere en sjanse til å bli hørt, og det ble oppfordret til å etablere en gruppe med stipendiater og studenter knyttet opp til de nye FME-sentrene for å diskutere store linjer i energi- og klimapolitikken. Spørsmålet statsråden rettet til studentene, var;
"Hvordan kan Norge bidra med teknologi for å løse energi- og klimautfordringen?".Svaret på spørsmålet vet vi fortsatt ikke, men vi har kommet godt i gang med å sette sammen en gruppe. Vi har nå med oss til sammen 14 studenter, stipendiater og unge forskere knyttet til fagområdene som dekkes av de nye forskningssentrene. I dag hadde vi et møte der de involverte fikk møte hverandre for første gang, og vi har begynt å skissere en plan for det videre arbeidet.

Følgende temaer ble tatt opp til diskusjon;
- Bør vi konsentrere oss om én spesiell teknologi/løsning, eller bør vi se på det store bildet?
- Hva skal vi produsere?
- Skal vi være visjonære eller realistiske?
- Når begynner fremtiden?
- Hva vil OED egentlig ha fra oss?
- Har vi lyst til å svare på det spørsmålet vi har fått?
- Går det an å løse klimautfordringen med teknologi?
- Bør vi lage illustrasjoner?
- Bør vi skrive en kronikk?
- Hvor lang tid tar det å få et resultat?
- Skal vi dra på en hytte?
- Hvilken hytte, og når?

Reviewing our renewable energy and efficiency investments.

Since my ex-wife and I purchased our home in Maine in 2001 I have been working at reducing our energy footprint as part of my commitment to live as sustainably as practical.  My strategy has been to reduce use of fossil fuel by improving things like building insulation and increasing efficiency in general. But also I have added renewable energy sources such as a solar heating system for the hot water in our home and the 5.8 kW solar array I installed, and the solar augmented heating system for my workshop.  I decided to review my progress so far since I have extensive data on all of our energy sources and costs.  This information is derived mostly from our utility bills.


We use propane to heat the house and also for cooking, clothes drying, and water heating.  The chart below shows our annualized usage and cost for propane per heating season.  As you can see we have reduced our use of propane by about 50% over the years.  The biggest impact was the solar water heating system installed in 2006.

Not factored into our relatively low propane costs is the fact that we burn up to 2 cords of firewood per year at a cost ranging from $300-$500 per year. In 2020 we spent $425 for firewood which brings our recent total heating cost to a little over $1400 which is less than half the Maine state average for home heating costs. 

Some of the things responsible for our diminishing usage are:

• Improved basement insulation added to exterior concrete walls.
• Tightening up the building envelope by foam insulating air gaps around window and door framing.
• Adding interior storm window panels and closing honeycomb insulating shades in the cold winter nights.
• Weatherstripping around exterior doors and improving attic insulation.

I built a solar augmented heating system for my super insulated 1260 sq.ft.workshop in 2001.  Since then I have reduced the use of propane to heat the building by 75% by lowering the thermostats and transitioning to burning (renewable) firewood that I mostly cut from my own 2.5 acre lot. 

Thanks to the solar power system I installed, our average electric bill would be around $10 if we did not have the Chevy Volt electric vehicle which adds approximately $45 per month to our monthly bill.

The $45 average monthly electric cost to charge the Chevy Volt is reducing our gasoline usage by about 26 gallons for that vehicle since we drive in electric mode about 60% of the time.  (The remaining 40% are driven in “range extender” mode at approximately 40 mpg.)  And since a large percentage of the charging power for the Volt comes from our solar array in the summer, we are driving for largely free and carbon neutral during those months.

One can look at all of the investments I have made in reducing our energy footprint in terms of return on investment. In actual dollars most of these investments have already paid for themselves, such as the solar hot water heating system I installed in 2006 which according to my calculations paid for itself in approximately 4.5 years and will save us an estimated $11,000 over 25 years:

 

In general investing in renewable energy yields a better return than investing in the stock market. Even my relatively expensive solar power installation that has cost me over $25,000 will pay for itself within 16 or 18 years (accounting for federal and state incentives) assuming it had been financed at below 5% interest.  Since I have already paid off that system, the energy savings is all pure profit at this point.

Picking up roadside trash

Trash from 3/4 mile of local roads (I removed the redeemables and recyclables).

For the last few years I have been walking around my neighborhood here in rural Maine picking up roadside trash every week.  While there is little to no trash on my small dead-end road with about a dozen houses on it, the moment I get out onto the more widely traveled roads I find a lot.  In fact, every week I fill a 15 gallon trash bag by walking about a half mile in each direction on the three roads that intersect the end of my road.  Generally, I find a lot of beer cans and bottles, miniature liquor bottles, cigarette packs, and general fast food packaging and other trash.  Here in Maine I can redeem most of the bottles and cans for 5 cents each so I often pay myself over a dollar a week.  The rest gets sorted into my trash or recycling bins.  During my walk this afternoon, I was thinking about all the reasons that I do this and I thought I would share them with my readers in the hopes that I can inspire some of you to follow suit and pick up trash in your neighborhood if you live in a neighborhood where outdoor trash is an issue.

• Community service - I value my community, and Maine is known as "Vacationland" so it is important to keep our roads clean and attractive.
• Environmental stewardship - 'nuff said.
• Treasure hunt - as I walk searching for distinctive shiny or bright objects, there is an element of treasure hunting and the reward is often 5 cents.
• Good exercise - I generally walk between two and 3 miles and the roads are hilly enough that I raise my heart rate and work up a sweat even on cold days.  It's not just walking but all the bending and stretching that makes it a good aerobic workout.  I often stray out into the fields on each side of the road where windblown trash shows up and there is some scrambling around to get there and back.
• Visible activism - by being highly visible on the road and picking up trash I am hoping to inspire other people to follow suit, or at least raise their awareness of the issue.
• Grateful neighbors - every now and then a neighbor will stop and say "thank you".  It's not the main reason I do this but it's nice to be acknowledged.

Garbage and recycling

My small town in rural Maine has a population of less than 3000 people and a few years ago we instituted a zero sort recycling pickup.  Prior to that all recycling had to be sorted and taken to a series of containers at the town office and only a few stalwart citizens made use of this system which was cumbersome.  It was particularly challenging during the heavy Maine winters.  Now we put out a single bin of mixed recyclables every two weeks, while our regular trash is picked up weekly.  Residents have been slow to commit to the recycling plan and in 2020 the numbers were not very encouraging.  922.8 tons were sent to either landfill or waste to energy facilities, while only 217.5 tons of recyclables were sent to a sort facility.  While we are charged for garbage and recycling pickup, there is no tipping fee (based on tonnage) for the recyclable pickup.  So you would think the town residents would see the incentive to recycle since it would reduce our local property taxes.

Being someone who is very committed to sustainability, my waste and recycling stream is minimal but I decided to measure my garbage and recycling output to see how well I am doing.  Before I take the bins to the curb I weigh them and subtract the weight of the container to get the net weight and enter it into a spreadsheet from which I can extract this chart:

chart will be updated weekly throughout the year

Not documented are redeemable cans and bottles (we get 5 cents each in Maine), but this amounts to only a few ounces a week.  Also I pick up roadside trash around my neighborhood in a 1/2 mile radius and that adds a pound or so a week of recyclables, redeemables and trash.

Throughout the winter my I recycle less paper and cardboard because I use those materials as kindling for my 2 wood stoves, so my numbers are a bit low to start with.  Most of what ends up in the garbage is food packaging and some office waste. 

Occasionally I dispose of some broken piece of equipment, but I usually strip out any parts that I can use before it goes in the garbage.  Larger electronic devices such as computer printers are taken to the local electronics store to be recycled rather than trashed.  And rechargeable batteries and old CF lamps go to the local drop-off bins in Lowe's hardware store.  Bulky thinks like old appliances or furniture are delivered to the land fill - but this happens very rarely.

I am pleased to see that I am averaging around 60-70% recycling to 30-40% trash.  Given the very small amount of actual materials I dispose of, all it will take is one large heavy item to skew the statistics.  So it will be interesting to see how I average out at the end of the year.For reference the EPA says an average American: "...recycled and composted 1.51 pounds of our individual waste generation of 4.38 pounds per person per day."  My weekly average so far is about 1/3 of that.  I do see a few neighbors that put out three or four garbage pails per week and very little in their recycling bins and it is hard for me to understand how a family can create that much garbage.  Our local landfill was supposed to have been closed a year or two ago but they somehow found more room to keep building a mountain of garbage there.  Maine is slowly moving toward a more sustainable waste stream with a number of waste to energy plants and biomass to energy plants for organic waste. 

The thing about garbage is once it leaves the curb most people do not think about it whereas I personally have visited both the local garbage dump and the recycling sorting facility that processes our recycling.  Both places are quite amazing.  The technology for sorting recyclables is so efficient that less than 1% comes out at the other end as garbage and this is mostly due to people putting things into the recycling bins that don't belong there due to ignorance or laziness.  

Zero sort recycling plant separating materials

Recycling plants operate at a profit and every month bidders show up to make offers on the spot market for all of the recycled materials.  One thing I learned from a tour of the plant was that all of the glass gets crushed into a single pile of mixed brown, green, and clear.  This is sold to the nearby Coors bottling plant because the average net color is quite close to the light brown color that they use for their bottles.  Here is an excellent video showing how the materials are sorted at the plant that processes our recyclables.

Here is my chart from 2020, the numbers are a little higher until October when my ex-wife moved out:

Controlling a portable electric heater with a Nest Thermostat

Nest E thermostat with heater and control box

My love affair with the Nest E thermostat continues (see previous post).  I acquired a second one for about $80 for use in my bedroom that is heated exclusively by a portable electric heater. I'm using a 1500W Pelonis Safe T Furnace with a ceramic heater core that works very well.  Apparently these heaters are classics now - I have had mine since the 1980's! 

Pelonis heater and my relay control box

The relay box contains a 24VAC relay rated for 15 Amps and a 20 Amp circuit breaker.  I wired it with a 12 gauge power cord and a 3-prong grounded outlet for the output.

inside my thermostat relay control box

I put a neon indicator next to the outlet so I could be sure it was switching.

Here's the schematic:

This should work with any thermostat, but use at your own risk.  It is important to use 12 gauge wire in the box and power cord to carry the high load, and I felt better putting my own 15 Amp circuit breaker inside.
Among the things that I have learned to love about the Nest are that it automatically adjusts for daylight savings.  But also it can set back the temperature when I leave home by using the IFTTT app.  Plus it could not be easier to use, program and adjust.  And of course I have connected it to Alexa so I can adjust the temperature by voice command and from my phone from aywhere.

Trash Talk

I live in the small town of Woolwich, Maine with a population of around 3000 people.  Our town is managed by half a dozen selectmen and women, and we meet annually in the school gym to vote on the annual budget for the town.  In recent years our town has been hotly debating how to manage waste and recycling.  Since our town is equally divided between what can best be described as ignorant rednecks and liberal progressives, the debate can be quite lively.

The issue of how to encourage more recycling has been on the table for years.  Our recycle to waste ratio is about 25% recycled which is pathetic compared to most other local towns that recycle 50 to 60% of their waste.  A few years ago we voted to institute a Pay As You Throw program in which you had to buy bright orange labeled bags from the town in order to be able to put trash out at the curb for pickup.  The bags sold for $1 each and this so thoroughly pissed off one local that he petitioned for a special town vote to repeal this program because he felt it was punitive to those with low incomes.  His shortsighted thinking did not acknowledge that this program would save the town over $80,000 a year and thus reduce our property taxes.  However his petition passed due to a very vocal minority at the meeting and the program was canceled after three months.  The program was wildly successful during the three months that it operated and our recycling rate went from 25% to over 45%.  The moment the town stopped using the bags again recycling dropped back down to below 30%.  I am often embarrassed to be a resident of this town for reasons like this.

On the bright side, we do have mixed stream curbside recycling.  This means that we can dump anything recyclable into a bin and leave it at the curb.  It is picked up and sent to EcoMaine - a nonprofit facility that is co-owned by several local towns.  There they sort and separate the plastic, glass, paper, cardboard etc. into bundles that can be sold.  My personal ratio is about 60% recycling 40% trash by weight, and I believe my ratio is improving this year but I stopped weighing my trash bins at the end of 2020.

EcoMaine furnace

The good news is that we have now opted to send our trash to a Waste-to-Energy furnace that is also operated by EcoMaine.  The furnace produces steam to drive an electric generator.  The power produced is sold to offset some of EcoMaine operating costs.  The ash from the furnace is screened for metals and is then sent to a landfill owned by EcoMaine.  So ultimately the amount of waste that is landfilled from our town is very small.  The problem is that a lot of recyclable materials are being burned due to the laziness of our local rednecks.  

I remember touring a recycling sorting facility in Massachusetts many years ago and noticed that all of the glass no matter what color was crushed and dumped into a bin.  I asked the plant operators what happened to that glass.  They said that the aggregate color is a light brown and it is sent to a local Coors bottling plant where they reuse the glass to make beer bottles.  This is just one of the many ways in which recycling operates in a successful way regionally.

NEST thermostat for my Rinnai monitor heater

I heat my home in rural Maine with a combination of propane and a large wood stove.  I have 2 Rinnai monitor heaters - one in the living area and 1 in the guest bedroom.  The wood stove in the basement is capable of heating the whole house, but I only fire it up when the temperatures drop below 20F which is often in the winter.  This strikes a balance for me of cost and performance - and carbon footprint.  In an ideal world I would replace the propane units with heat pumps, but that is beyond my budget for now.

I have been exploring different ways of controlling the big propane heater in my living room.

It's a 20 year old model that has a manual switch that you push-on/push-off and a simple slider to set temperature.  

A while back I built an interface that allowed me to use a regular programmable wall thermostat to operate it by replacing the power switch with a relay, and that worked relatively well.  But my schedule is erratic and I wanted the option of remote control.  The NEST thermostat E is a very appealing thermostat, but I had considered it too expensive until I found a used one one on eBay for about $80.  (The newer E model lists for $169, and the previous one is $249 and these prices are way more than a regular programmable thermostat that sell for $45 to $65.)

Here's the hookup info for the relay I used to control my heater.

I used a 24VAC power adapter that I got on Amazon that is sold specifically for home thermostats, and a 24VAC relay from Digi-Key (their part number: Z9722-ND ).  It was pretty simple to hook these items up with the 25ft. of wire that came with the adapter.  I did have to get inside the heater and install the relay in there, and it was not something I would recommend for anyone not experienced with wiring or electronics.

This setup works really well for me.  Here's what I like about the Nest in particular.  First, I can control the thermostat setting from anywhere using my phone.  The user interface is excellent and it is extremely easy to program a schedule.

I also like that I can review the history that shows hours of operation per day and the individual cycles.

And the main screen could not be simpler:

Since I have installed an Alexa echo dot, I can say: "Alexa, set the thermostat to 68" and she set's it instantly.  This is nice if I decide to get up earlier than the scheduled time because I can use the 2nd echo dot in my bedroom to turn the heat up before I go downstairs.  Or, similarly if I decide to knock off work early I can set it from my office using the app.

Another clever feature is that the Nest can be programmed to set the heat back if I leave home.  It uses the IFTTT app to geolocate my home and can tell when I leave the area.  Overall I could not be happier with the Nest and all its features.

In my next post I show how I built an external relay box to control a portable electric heater from the Nest E.

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How I design an electronic product

I thought I would share the process I go through to design an electronic product.  I have been doing this type of work since the mid 1980s and while the tools and parts have changed, the process has remained much the same.  As an example I will show how I designed my own product which is a Differential Temperature Controller designed for solar heating systems.  

This device controls fluid circulation pumps that move heat from solar collectors to storage tanks.  I sell these products from my ART TEC Solar web site.

I begin by designing the schematic in CAD (Computer Aided Design).  This is the hard part that requires a lot of research to find the right components and then figure out how they interconnect.  In most products these days there is a microcontroller chip that is programmed to perform all the functions.  More on that later.  Selecting the right microcontroller begins by deciding how many things it needs to connect to or control.  These include buttons, LED indicators, LCD (Liquid Crystal) text display, and connections to external parts like pumps, sensors and power source.  The schematic drawing defines how all these parts connect to each other.

Next I design the circuit board (PCB) in CAD.  The layout software imports the signal connections from the schematic making it easier to ensure all the right connections are made.  This PCB is the physical embodiment of the schematic and involves carefully placing the parts such that the interconnections are optimized.  Key parts like the controls and screw terminals need to be placed for ergonomics and easy access.  For me, this is the fun part because it is a lot like creating an artwork and I enjoy making an aesthetically pleasing layout.

The location of every part has to adhere to electrical AND functional rules and the size of the circuit traces has to be scaled to the amount of power it has to carry.  Circuits that carry more current are wider like the green ones along the bottom in the design above. The green represents the conductive traces on the bottom side of the board, and the red are those on the top of the circuit board.  A great deal of thought goes into every minute detail to optimize size and cost.

The parts need to line up to make assembly by robot or hand easier.

Once the design is complete the file is sent to a fabricator that makes the bare circuit board.  This is a fiberglass board with plated copper traces connecting the holes where the components get inserted.  For volume production, they are tiled up into groups to facilitate machine assembly.  

Once an assembly machine has been programmed to insert all the parts, it can just copy the sequence to the rest of the boards on the panel.  For hand assembly, boards are separated and parts are inserted by hand and then hand soldered on the back.  In my design, parts are installed on both sides.

Once a prototype is assembled and tested, the next step is to write computer code for the microcontoller chip.

I write in BASIC language and have been coding in some form of that language for over 40 years.  The code defines the functions of how the device responds to inputs like buttons and sensors.  The heart of the code defines the functions of what the device does.  In this case how it responds to sensor readings and when it decides to activate a pump.  It also displays real-time temperatures on the LCD and all the interactive menu features.  The code is them compiled into machine code and downloaded into the flash memory in the chip in much the same way you save a file to a thumb drive.

Finally, I design the front panel and case.  Often for my clients projects, I work with a product designer who does 3D CAD design.  In this case, I used an off-the-shelf basic box and set up tooling to make cutouts using the woodworking equipment in my workshop.  It would have been prohibitively expensive for me to design a custom enclosure and have molds made for injection molding a low volume product like mine. 

The front panel of this product is a membrane that I designed and had fabricated.  It is flexible so that a light touch can move the membrane enough to actuate the switches behind.  It has clear windows for the LCD screen and a green LED indicator.

The final step is to assemble the whole product.  All the parts get screwed or glued together and the membrane is adhered on to the front.  Here is one that I use in the solar heating system for my workshop.

The process of developing this product took dozens of hours over several weeks.  Finally I have a product that has done relatively well in the niche market of the DIY solar heating world.  I set everything up to be scalable from making them by hand to volume contract assembly.  In boom years I contracted an assembly company to make batches of 100 pieces.  Otherwise I just build them by hand myself and it takes me about 30 minutes to assemble.  I call this my "get rich slow scheme" as orders come in almost every week. Over the years I have sold over 200 of this particular model and have two other models that have sold over 1000 pieces total. 

Many of my clients start out by ordering 1000 products for test marketing, then scale up once they have created a demand.  Most volume manufacturing is done off-shore, but for under 1000 pieces there are companies in the US that can be competitive.

If you have a great idea for an electronic product, visit my Product Design page and contact me.

Solar panel seasonal tracking

My workshop with solar arrays

A couple of years ago after I had installed my west facing solar array, I realized there was still some space above my south facing solar collectors that are used to heat the building.  So I decided to install two additional 245W panels.  Each panel feeds an Enphase microinverter that converts the DC solar power to 240VAC that feeds into the main breaker panel.

Solar panels perform optimally when they are pointed directly at the sun and their energy output drops significantly when they are off by as much as 20°.   Since the sun elevation changes from 42° in the winter to 66° in the summer here in Maine (a change of 42°) I felt it would be wise to engineer the panels to track the seasonal changes.

I researched DC linear actuators and found one that had a 24 inch stroke, this means that it could change length from 28 inches to 52 inches.  This would allow me to lower the panel to meet the lowest sun angle in the winter and raise it relatively close to the 66° summer elevation angle.  I am more concerned with optimizing winter power since the days are so much shorter.

Progressive Automations PA-14

I used Google SketchUp to optimize the geometry of the installation.

In order to get the panels to accurately track the sun's position, I designed a servo control system (here is my schematic) and connected it to a timer that activates the electronics several times a day for a minute.  Here is a photo showing the timer mounted above my handmade control panel that allows me to operate it in automatic or manual modes.

Moving the panels in manual override

I designed a solar tracking sensor and built it into a small red plastic dome.  There are two small photocells mounted above and below a black painted metal divider.  When the sun shines unequally on the two sensors a signal is sent to my controller to move the motor until the brightness is equal on both sensors.

Sun tracking sensor with 2 photocells

It is early March now and the actuators are approaching their maximum extension in order to catch the higher angle of the sun.  Due to limitations of the length of throw of the actuators, they only actively track the sun from the fall solstice through the winter until the spring solstice.  This improves performance during the shortest solar days in the year.

Solar panels with linear actuators extended part way

To be honest, I am not sure how much more energy I am gaining by tracking the seasonal solar elevation changes, but it was a lot of fun to engineer this project.  I am reminded that this system is working because the linear actuators are loud enough that I can hear them when they move.  The timer is programmed to activate the system at noon and 2:00pm for a minute every day.