Solar Weevils - 1st Performances

SolarWeevils had their first airing at the recent Offload Festival in Bristol.

Just to recap the idea - the mini batteries are charged up during the day by the solar panels. The Weevils are silent during the day but when evening comes a light sensor kicks the sound circuit into life and the Weevils perform a dusk chorus until their power drains and they quieten for the night.

The design actually had to be changed at the last minute - tests with the SuperCapacitors from MUTR hadn't been so great, so a change was made to using miniature NiMH rechargeable batteries. These behave in a much more stable and long-lifed way and allowed the addition of LEDs driven by the 3 oscillators. Blinky, clickety, squeek-noise.

This project will be mutated sometime in the future, but there's not much sun around these parts at the moment so I reckon its hibernation time until spring.

Solar Weevils - prototyping

Here're some initial details of my new Solar Weevil project which is kindly supported by Middlesex University Teaching Resources (MUTR) - they're a really interesting shop selling lots of different materials / components - mainly focused on supplying education establishments, but also with some great bits for DIY tinkerers. They're supplying me with the solar panels (4.5v 100mA) and super capacitors (10F, 2.5v). Super capacitors are really interesting and I'll discuss their uses in more detail at a later date - here they're being used as little rechargeable batteries.

This is the other thread of solar work along with the modular stuff. What I've tried to do is make a system that stores energy during the day and then, using simple light sensors and transistor switches, switches a little Weevil synth circuit on when dusk arrives. As the light fails and the stored power is drained, the Weevil sounds move through different territories until starved of power.

These will be built in multiples and then hung from bushes at the Offload Festival - when dusk comes the swarms will burst into an evening chorus!

More details over the next few months!

Solar Power Modular

I've been building up to this for a while -- the modular has been running off battery power for a few months and now the final pieces are complete for the full solar powered portable system (well, the frame at least -- the modules will always be changing!)

This new frame (built to size to fit within Easyjet's musical instrument carry-on luggage sizes!) holds a whopping 52 frac-module widths and houses two large (12v 1amp) solar panels in its lid. These hook up to rechargeable SLA batteries (via auto-charge controllers) and then power the modular frame.

Debut performance -> Goldmund Festival - late night, by a lake, extended techno wobble set!

BugBrand Ambassador Battery Powered Modular

Here's some first pics of my new (just-about) portable system. It runs entirely without the need for mains electricity. Powered by two chunky 12v SLA batteries and with a pretty meaty internal power amp, this allows modular squelch almost anywhere (..first performances were outside by the Bristol harbour during the wonderful Venn Festival weekend). Soon this will be solar powered - going to pick up a couple of powerful panels from the Post Office later today...

This has been called the Ambassador System. Its a pretty chunky frame - at the moment holding three frac-racks of modules (with space for a fourth down below).

Here's a detail of the front. I made a frame for 5u tall frac-width panels so as to fit in a system mixer. This mixer has big stats! ::: four input preamp channels, four aux sends (you can never have enough! There're two sending up to the frac modules and two sending to 1/4" output jacks), plus main channel with C.Anderton Opt-compressor.

Then there's a couple of rough'n'ready panels to hold:
Power Regulators --- I've regulating the 12v bipolar supply down to +/- 10v using 317/337 circuits. Not totally sure if I need to do this though...
Power Connections --- to hook up solar panels etc
Power Stat LEDs - LM3914 based 12v battery testers to see how well the SLAs are charged
Power Amp - actually pretty meaty 20watt amp - its certainly loud when inside the studio! And, with the chunky batteries, this can chug out loud sounds for many hours!

& here's some more details of the mixer build..... repetition!

And here's a wobbly YouTube Demo video::::::