Quadcopter progress.....

So following my post a while ago regarding my intention build a quadcopter, and largely due to my brother getting off his ass and finishing his, I have ordered all the parts required to finish my build in one foul swoop!

So I bought a cheap 450mm frame off ebay, one of the very popular white and red fiberglass ones. I sat with the frame on the bookcase for ages, and then got a kick up the ass to finish it, so a quick order to hobbyking for this:

Cheap Quadcopter build

Stage one of my quadcopter build, will be a slow build as I am buying a few parts every month. My intention is to build it as cheap as possible, I won't be spending £000's like some of the builds. So I ordered a 450mm quad frame from china, for the princely sum of £10, arrived the other day, and I cannot fault the quality for the price.

Measuring Solar Panel Performance

Under a scheme in the UK, we are able to have solar panels for electricity generation for free, the basics of the scheme is that you can use as much electricity as you can generate and the remaining generated electricity that goes back into the grid gets paid to the company who supply the Solar PV System.

So we have had one fitted, and obviously I was very keen to see the benefits of having the system, so I bought an OWL CM160 to try and monitor the electric usage.  

The software that comes with the OWL is ok, however doesn't really have much functionality other than displaying historic/realtime usage.

So my intention is to, output the data collected from the OWL to a file that can be read/visualised by external sources, then use this to remotely monitor the data, ideally from my iphone, android phone, or my ipad via apps that I will build.

I intend to hook up another OWL monitor to measure Solar generated power against the house consumption so I can compare the 2.

I will break this up into stages as I go through the project.

LED Doorlock indicators

Check out this write up by my dad on his doorlock status lights!!

Really cool project, with some real world uses

http://grizzly-grizzlysblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/door-lock-indicators-first-project-to.html

Google+

Have just received my invite, will check it out and post thoughts soon.

Automated hallway Skirtingboard Lighting

Here's a slightly more involved project of mine, finished today (almost) using a second box of the LED decking lights I bought for my kitchen plinth lighting project.

When I fitted my new kitchen I put new flooring in though the hall into the kitchen, and at the same time removed all the skirting to be replaced.

When I fitted the flooring I laid some connecting wiring under the floor, just for this reason.

So, skirting board bought, box of LED lights, and a day off, here we go again!

Kitchen Window Etching the techie way!

Now here is my next problem to solve, our house faces a road with nothing but the driveway between whats happening in the kitchen and the passing pedestrians and cars! This became more apparent when I re-fitted the kitchen as I took down the old blind etc.

I looked into electric blinds, however I found they are either huge money, or not really suitable for what I need.

So my solution was to put my vinyl cutter to good use.