![]() ![]() The story will appeal to crypto - not cryptocurrency - fans, especially those fascinated by Enigma machines, because it revolves around a Swiss rotor cipher machine called the HX-63, which was essentially a refinement of the original Enigma technology. IEEE Spectrum has a story about “The Scandalous History of the Last Rotor Cipher Machine,” and it’s a great read - almost like a Tom Clancy novel. If you thought privacy concerns and government backdoors into encryption technology were 21st-century problems, think again. A 14th flight is planned to see how well the rotors bite into the rarefied air, but Ingenuity’s days as a scout for Perseverance could be numbered. NASA has run a test on that, spinning the rotors up to 2,800 RPM, and Ingenuity handled the extra stresses and power draw well. The solution to keeping Ingenuity flying is simple: run the rotors faster. Over the last few months, the density of the Martian atmosphere has decreased a wee bit, but when you’re starting with a plan for a pressure that’s only 1.4% of Earth’s soupy atmosphere, every little bit counts. Ingenuity was designed for five flights that would all take place around the time its mothership Perseverance touched down on Mars back in February, at which time the mean atmospheric pressure was at a seasonal high. The little helicopter that could is starting to have trouble dealing with the thinning Martian atmosphere, and may start pressing against its margin of safety for continued operation. Things might be getting a bit dicey out in Jezero crater for Ingenuity. We have also seen the ESP32 put to work with MPPT before, although in a slightly less refined but still intriguing way.Ĭontinue reading “Tracking Maximum Power Point For Solar Efficiency” → Posted in News Tagged charge controller, controller, Maximum power point, MPP, mppt, open source, panel, solar, tracker There’s even a lengthy lecture on inductor core designs, and of course everything on this project is open source. One design choice of note is the use of an ESP32 over an Arduino due to the higher resolution available when doing analog to digital conversion. This build is incredibly extensive and goes deep into electrical theory and design choices. It even works on many different battery configurations and chemistries, all configurable in software. ![]() This uses a specially configured switch-mode power supply (SMPS) in order to match the power output of the panels to the best power point for any given set of conditions extremely rapidly. To that end, the methods that he uses for his MPPT are essentially the same as any commercial unit, known as synchronous buck conversion. While small MPP trackers (MPPT) are available in solar charge controllers in the $200 range that are quite capable for small off-grid setups, aka decided to roll out an open source version with a much lower price tag since most of the costs of these units are in R&D rather than in the actual components themselves. But all solar farms still track something else, called the Maximum Power Point (MPP), which ensures that even stationary panels are optimized for power production. Since the price of panels has plummeted, though, it’s not economical to install complex machines to track the sun anymore. In days of yore when solar panels weren’t dirt cheap, many people (and even large energy companies) used solar trackers to ensure their panels were always physically pointed at the sun to make sure they harvested every watt of energy possible. ![]()
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