We installed this GE Model # 15088 automatic digital shutoff timer for our garage light, which we have a tendency to leave on. Pressing one of the five buttons turns the light on/off or sets the light to automatically turn off after 10, 20, 30 or 60 minutes.
The Samsung Galaxy S II is billed as the top smart phone - and, unlocked (without a contract), probably the most expensive. Some of its features are quad band world phone, GPS, spoken turn-by-turn directions, Voice Command, Voice Search, Voice Talk, dual core high-speed processor, up to 32g micro SD card, WiFi hotspot creation, android Gingerbread OS, automatic wireless synchronizing of our calendar and contacts with Google, our laptop and our netbook etc. etc. If we say, "Navigate to Circuit Specialists in Gilbert," it will find it, plot a course and tell us how to get there from our present location. The screen is the brightest of all. Our HTC Touch diamond smart phone quit working properly, so we went for the gusto.
This Kindle was our reward for getting to bed by 9:30 every night for a month: big challenge (for us) and big reward. We no longer have to worry about a "book" flopping closed on us, reading in the crease of the page, stressing our arms holding a heavy book, having a dictionary handy for looking up words, worrying about a highlighter, going to the store to buy books or finding the instruction manual for one of our gadgets. The Kindle has it all.
Click to see the Auxiliary Power Plan using a single controller for everything.
LiFeMnPO
Lithium/Iron/Manganese/Phosphate/Oxygen battery
BEFORE
15A
LVD
low-voltage disconnect. To avoid battery damage, it shuts off the load if the battery gets low.
from Rogue
LiFeMnPO
Lithium/Iron/Manganese/Phosphate/Oxygen battery
on end AFTER we configured it for use as the house battery in our van,with:
Andersen connector
LVD (low-voltage disconnect)
voltmeter
4 cigarette lighter sockets
refrigerator cord
USB power outlet
cell voltage balancers.
Van Auxiliary Power Project: Here you can follow our development (latest is last) on the Auxiliary Power Project for our van. It has made for an easier life on our trips.
- For 13 years we have used the van's engine battery for all our power needs, which is sometimes a challenge - especially in hot weather when the little refrigerator runs more. That meant an occasional jumper pack start and replacing the battery every year or two.
- This 60 AH 4-cell LiFeMnPO battery accepts a high-current charge and is a light-weight, compact deep-cycle auxiliary battery. When the ignition is on it is combined with the van battery and is charged by the van's 120A alternator.
Development of our thoughts and diagrams (latest/current is last):
Single controller for everything: It would need to handle a max of 120 charging amps from the van's alternator when the engine is running.
10 Amp low current controller which would be bypassed for charging the battery pack with the alternator while the engine is running. The SC-10 from Battery Space or the
PR Series from Don Roe might be good solutions.
Simple, no-solar solution with auxiliary battery, concocted as the results of starter battery tests that demonstrated that it can not handle the demand. Tests will need to confirm that the
LiFeMnPO
Lithium/Iron/Manganese/Phosphate/Oxygen
auxiliary battery is compatible with our van's charging system. It would need to handle a max of 120 charging amps from the van's alternator when the engine is running.
No-solar with relayFinal configuration as of March, 2011: Same as above, but using a regular solenoid/relay instead of an automatic relay/combiner. This is necessary because the higher voltages of the
LiFeMnPO
Lithium/Iron/Manganese/Phosphate/Oxygen
house battery would distort the turn on/off voltages of an automatic version. Tests determined that the van's charging system will work with the
LiFeMnPO
Lithium/Iron/Manganese/Phosphate/Oxygen
. Todd Barlow founder of Green Motors did an excellent job helping me with the final cabling and installation.
1-Calc is the best calculator we could find for our Windows Mobile phone. We bought it for $30 after the 30-day free trial. There are multiple language selections and the calculator is available for your PC and other phone formats. You can customize your own functions and button arrangements. It comes with these calculators:
Basic, with 1/x, Memory Substitute and other useful features
This Granite all-in-one battery charger/maintainer/tester/alarm does not have quite the output of the Cteck below, but costs less and includes several additional features like a digital display.
The CTEK MULTI US 7002 is an eight-phase electronic charger for 12v batteries used in autos, motorhomes, and boats. It does special cold-weather charging, is suited for both starter and deep-cycle batteries, charges AGM batteries (like the Optima), is supposed to recover deeply discharged flooded batteries, corrects stratified acid conditions, revives lightly sulfated batteries (breaks down lead sulfate crystals), serves as a 13.6v power supply and goes into pulse mode for indefinate battery maintenance without damage.
CETEK has good infomration about Choosing the correct battery charger size and other topics.
We got our 7002 from SJ Discount Tools.com. CTEK also makes excellent less pricy and less capable chargers such as their MULTI US 3300 12-Volt Universal Battery Charger w/ Pulse Maintenance.
The La Crosse BC-9009 is the best AA AAA battery charger we could find, and not too expensive (best information here from the manufacturer's website, but not the best prices). Our second choice would have been the MAHA MH-C401S, which costs less but lacks some useful features. The BC-9009's features include:
Works with all NiCd and NiMH “AA” and “AAA” Rechargeable Batteries
LCD shows much information for each battery (channel), including capacity when charging is complete
Charges AA & AAA rechargeable batteries simultaneously
Will not charge defective batteries
Select different charging current for each channel
Automatically switches to trickle charge when charging is complete to ensure maximum battery capacity
Automatically defaults to 200mA charge (the optimal setting for prolonging battery life)
Overheat detection to protect over-charging
7 Easy to Use Function Keys select modes and various related information
Watch Sonny Thaper tipping his iPhone to maneuver EdAz's AR Dronequadracopter around the big room at Gangplank and see if he hits the rafters. The quadracopter is stabilized by accelerometers, gyrometers, an ultrasonic altimeter and a ground-facing video camera. It also has a forward-facing video camera. Both cameras are viewable on the controlling iPhone or iPad.
Take a look at this unbelievable video of aggressive maneuvers for autonomous quadrocopters.
This Travelon Micro luggage scale ($25) weighs less than three ounces, has a 110-pound capacity and helps keep us from paying big bucks for going over airline weight limits. It also is useful for a bunch of other things, such as weighing your kites to determine if they are completely dried out or your board to see if it is taking on water.
This Shadowbox ($500; shadowboxlive.com) is a GPS unit that attaches to your kiteboard and records everything from your speed and acceleration to jump height and degree of rotation then plays in back in stunning 3-D detail, using gyros, accelerometers, magnetometers and GPS to determine position.
This solar-powerd walk light was a rare, pure impulse purchase, but for only $3.88. All the electronics are contained in the hocky puck cap, and the single white LED actually makes enough light to see the walkway.
This Canon PowerShot SX20IS, which we bought for the St Lucia trip, has almost everything we wanted in a camera: 12.1mp, fast 20x zoom, wide angle/macro lens with optical image stabilized 2.5-inch articulating LCD monitor, runs on 4AA cells, takes good video and non-interchangeable lens, which means it should do better in harsh kiteboarding environments with blowing sand. Bad features: slow burst rate; electronic viewfinder (blanks out during exposures makes it hard to follow action).
The Garmin Foretrex 201 is our preferred kiteboarding GPS receiver as of April 25, 2011, when we deposited our Foretrex 401 at the bottom of Laguna Madre.
It lacks a few features compared to the 401 (below), but has a major advantage: It is really waterproof and also is a little thinner. Although the 401 has the same waterproof rating (IEC Standard 60529 IPX7) its battery door tends to leak, saltwater gets in and the connections rust. The 201 is rechargeable so has no battery door. Recharging it is not much of a problem since it charges from a 5 Volt source, which matches a computer's USB output. Also the 201 costs less.
The Foretrex 401 has some neat features over the 201's:
2 AAA cells (rather than rechargeable)
High sensitivity receivers
USB 2.0 interface (instead of serial)
Magnetic Compass (electronic)
20% smaller face with the same screen size
It is, however, a little thicker
Stronger wrist strap attachment
Wireless data sharing with some devices
These features the same on both:
500 waypoint capacity
Waterproof rating (IEC Standard 60529 IPX7), however, get the 201 unless you are willing to spend some time cleaning and drying the 401's battery and USB compartments, as water DOES leak and it WILL rust and VOID your warranty.
We bought a couple of these to donate for charity drawings. The Garmin Nuvi 200 is inexpensive ($108 from Walmart.com) and pretty cool. Here is the instruction manual for this basic unit, which is for you if you are on a tight budget and don't have a turn-by-turn GPS. We're savin' up for a Garmin with all the bells and whistles.
Some features on the Nuvi 200 that are not on our old Street Pilot c330 are:
High sensitivity GPS reception is noticeably faster
Driving time appears to be calculated on going about 9 mph over the posted speed limit
Bicycle, pedestrian and off-road (direct) navagation options
Your computer sees it as an external USB drive so no software is needed (use the gpx file format).
More than one via point is allowed (sequence is confusing)
Easily fits in a shirt pocket
Separate language choices for keyboard, text and speech
Selectable keyboard layout
Vehicle icon can be changed
Proximity warnings
Memory for about 4,000 waypoints according to our experimentation
SD card slot
Picture viewer and slide show
Calculator plus currency and unit converters
World clock
Acute DS-1202 USB Virtual Oscilloscope screen shsot: Channel 1 = 1000kHz calibration signal; Channel 2 = 60Hz body-induced AC
One of our latest toys is this digital storage Virtual Oscilloscope. Regular oscilloscopes are bulky, have a small screen and lots of knobs and controls. This little unit gives you a BIG screen with your computer and is ideal for the Van Life, .
We bought one of these cool Kill-a-Watt power monitors that tells all sorts of things about electrical consumption - cost $20. First uses: check out X-10 idle power usage, our little post fan and good old refrigerator. Then our van refrigerator, computers etc. etc. Fun, fun, fun!
This digital meat thermometer has a porbe and an alarm. It allows our Jet Boil to heat water using very little fuel: 108 degrees to soak a foot, 119 degrees for sipping and 160 degrees to pour over oatmeal.
Waterproof Sanyo camcorder down to 4.5' for an hour. That means it should also be sand proof - important with kiteboarding. All you do is wash it in a bowl of water and dry it when you are through.
We bought this Corner Office ATC-139 Programable Graphing Scientific Calculator from Walgreens back in Phoenix for $15. It does about everything you can imagine. However the print of the 57-page instruction manual is too small for a normal human to read, so we have enlarged it as a PDF Manual (10 megabytes); our x-brother-en-law, Harold, made an enlargement of the keyboard and we were keeping notes as we read the manual until we hit a brick wall. The calculator would not save programs the way the instruction manual declared.
