It’s amazing what you learn about electronics. Ever since moving, I thought my stereo receiver was broken. It would power up, but would never output anything. Over the past year I’ve tried different speakers, inputs, sources, test modes, and finally resorted to using a voltmeter to measure things. In desperation as I lay in the floor looking at the front panel, I noticed there’s a “speaker on/off” button. Toggled this, the damn thing started outputting sound!
The second instance is where I seem to have found a bug in my TV’s receiver control. Program it to control two inputs to be used with two video sources, works fine. Try to re-use an input with a third source, all stop working.
Then! I always thought my DVR had a problem where it would freeze on images. Turns out the TV sends a ‘pause’ command whenever the input is changed.
I’ve been tinkering with my solar panels all weekend, finally getting around to rigging up volt and amp meters. Got them working and have been hooking up things around the apartment to see how much juice they draw. It’s interesting seeing my MacBook; normally it pulls like 5 A, but fire up youtube and it jumps to 8 A. Now I need a larger inverter to handle more AC load.
I ordered up a Morningstar charge controller and a BP 380 panel, which is rated for 80 watts. This gives me twice the wattage in half the space. I got home tonight and it was already waiting at my door. I was surprised, as I didn’t know it was shipped from Houston. It’s rather pretty, 36 shiny blue polycrystalline cells. For the day I eventually buy a travel trailer or shipping container home, this should fit nicely on the roof with possible others.
