2 photos:
You see 2 cables going into the box, atm the batteries need a first charge with normal 5V/1A powersupplys, it should be done in ~14 hours
And the parts in the box:
If the community like it, I can send it to one of the Berlin conference people. Well, please resend to me when finished
Todo:
- testing odroid U3 + XU
- measure power consumption of all parts, batteries and solar panel to optimice power usage for offgrid solar NXT nodes
- make a list off all pars + weblinks to shops
- howto
- ...
Greets,
eb
You could drill a hole thru the plastic instead of having to squeeze the ethernet cord....then it would be enclosed and maybe waterproof.
On the same note, can I suggest that you get some panel mounted IO ports. Like this panel mounted USB port - http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2012/08/23/new-panel-mount-usb-cable-b-female-to-mini-b-male-and-panel-mount-usb-cable-b-female-to-micro-b-male/. One for the ethernet cable and solar panel connectors would look great too.
A couple of NXT stickers on the sides of the box, line the insides with strips of LEDs, a bit of cable management and it will look amazing. It's the little things that make a setup/prototype like this. From experience, if you're going to do this you have to do it right and not have it look hacked together. That will scream the wrong message at people - "You can only do something like this if you are a genius". Even removing the casing from the batteries might make the whole thing look a little bit cooler (by doing this you can access their power switches then, such that you could daisy chain the power switches to one master switch mounted on the front of the box).
Also, purely from an Electrical Engineers pedantic perspective - I would mount a small fan running at low RPM on one of the sides of the box to prevent the entire thing from overheating.
Keep up the good work!
Edit: On a very slightly related note - I don't suppose anyone has been watching this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=334701.0. We could potentially launch a satellite and a swarm of solar powered forgers that locally communicate with the satellite. While Bitcoin might beat us to the first blockchain broadcast to/from space we can surely be the first to successfully secure our network (by forging) in space.
TL;DR: NXT IN OUTERSPACE!