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Zurich

on April 26, 2009

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Views from my hotel window in Zurich.

******
R Venkataraghavan
Sent from my E71

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Taking apart a Intel dotstation

After many years of use, my dad decided to give up on the intel dot station that he possessed, and I decided to make good use of it (read as taking it apart). Getting to open it was in itself a challenge due to the custom screw head that they had on the back panel, and I had to prise it open. The device is built on a metal chassis at the base enclosing the processor, HDD etc, on this is placed a 14" monitor, with the left of the monitor taking a PCB (the SMPS) and the right is another PCB (the electronics that takes a VGA input and converts to analog signals for running the CRT). That is it.... A very cool design, I though, for a PC designed 8 years ago. Well, with that done, and analysing the various piece of hardware, I decided to throw it all, except for the chassis and the HDD (that has a puppy linux inside). I hope some day to find a processor that will fit into the chassis and a SMPS and run a bare-bone PC.

#IoT

August 2017: I began reinvesting my time with electronics and hobby projects to explore arduino and raspberrypi. In three months, managed to build a proto to asses my hybrid solar generator, monitoring panel and batteries! It was a great success. April 2018: Revamped it with a new model with wifi capabilities and updating data to thingspeak iot. Well, the purpose of building that was to understand "Why my Solar Generator, with four 100 Ah batteries, gives an average back up of 50 min as compared to the UPS, with one 150 Ah battery, which gives a back up of 7 hrs 20 min (for similar loads)". The voltage traces of the respective batteries as they discharge and charge are as below. Turned out that the issue was with one of the batteries, but the data helped get the battery replace under warranty

A drive to Palakkad from bangalore.

Started, early this morning, for Palakkad, on my first long distance drive. The previous one was Bangalore-Mysore-bangalore, a couple of years ago. Started (trip meter at 0 km, time 4.15 am) from Whitefield, Bangalore, and through Hosur, only to stop for 10 minutes at Krishnagiri (trip meter at 97 km, time 5.45 am) for a coffee, and at Rs. 4, on way side coffee shop. The road all the way was excellent till Krishnagiri (toll ~rs 20), as it is part of the Bangalore-Pondichery Highway (NH47). At Krishnagiri, branched off to NH7, to Dharmapuri. Stopped there for B’fast (trip meter at 144 km, time 6.40 am), for a good pongal, vada with unlimited chutney and sambar, and all in Rs 18. Headed out of Dharmapuri, at 7.00 am, towards Salem. Was to pass through Salem and continue on NH7 to Coimbatore, but took a diversion, unintentionally, before Salem and landed up in going through Mettur (SH 20) and Bhavani to rejoin NH7 a little later. The loss of speed by taking SH20, in place of NH7 was compe

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