> On Thu, 14 Mar 2002 at 17:05:48, wrote: > >the carpet building up the voltage. I've been trying to think of a way > >to charge a battery off her, a kind of homemade cat-powered UPS...
Hmmm. A neighbour of mine, here in Houston, TX, has built his own unique (for a home-made dwelling system) power system. Three 4' x 8' solar powered steam generators (tanks with water and black metal panels in them to absorb solar energy and heat the water they lay in) with plumbing to a pump connected to a generator, which feeds through diodes into a power controller and storage. He does need to use a few kwh of electricity in winter (in TX that's two months) and generates surplus power in summer, even after running the air conditioning of the house. It cost him about $4000 to cobble up, and will pay for itself in under 3 years. And he always has plenty of hot water too. For on-topicness, he monitors and controls it with an Atari ST, which has a 68000 processor. :o) Dave
