On 2017-03-20, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...

[ ... ]

Better to go to memory-mapped devices for I/O if you can.

The 8080 and all its decendants have a separate I/O address space for
the physical hardware registers, which QBasic can directly read and
write.
http://stanislavs.org/helppc/bios_data_area.html

I think that I was talking about the TMS-9900 you mentioned. It
had really weird I/O by default. If you needed faster I/O, such as for
an 8" floppy drive, memory-mapped was far better, ignoring the built-in
I/O instructions.

For the Altair 8K BASIC for the 680b, there were poke and peek
instructions to access raw memory. (Of course, there was no OS under the
BASIC. :-)

For instance address 40:08 normally holds a pointer to 03F8, the LPT1
port data bit register. The next addresses are the control bit outputs
and the status bit inputs.

The 8080 family at least had 8-bit wide I/O instructions. The
TMS-9900, while you could ask for input or output (from a special
address bus) of up to 16 bits wide, it required a separate memory cycle
for each bit.

That's how the parallel port can drive custom external hardware, but
it works well without OS interference only in DOS. Still, an LCD
screen and keyboard, a GHz CPU and files on a hard drive is waaay
beyond an Arduino.

Of course.

COM1 and COM2 are similarly accessible at bit-banging level. Plug in a
serial-interfaced DVM and your program can measure voltage.

40:17 and 40:18 show the current up or pressed state of the
non-printing control keys. I checked them when my programs asked the
user to "press any key" and flashed the screen alarmingly when some
joker pressed Shift.

What about if the joker decided to spell out "any". :-)

The Mac was difficult because plug-ins are supposed to have a
driver
in ROM at the top of the slot's address block, written by an Apple
Certified Programmer. When I gave him the simple register model for
my
16 bit A/D converter he quoted 3 months to write it. Instead I left
the card invisible and generated four lines of 68000 machine
language
in LabVIEW to select a MUX channel and read the data when ready.

Labview was long after the 8080 machines. :-)

Was this after the time the Mac moved to full 32-bit code? I
seem to remember stories of programmers (against the rules) using
the
upper 8 bits of addresses as data/flag storage, which caused serious
problems when the full 32-bit addressing was enabled.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NuBus
"In order to select the proper device driver, NuBus included an ID
scheme that allowed the cards to identify themselves to the host
computer during startup."

"On the downside, while this flexibility made NuBus much simpler for
the user and device driver authors, it made things more difficult for
the designers of the cards themselves."

I think that NuBus was after the move from MC68000 to MC68020,
which allowed full 32-bit addressing.

Unless we dodged the rules, of course. That may have been why they
couldn't just buy a NuBus A/D converter card from National
Instruments. I wasn't otherwise involved in the project, a 6-port
microwave network analyzer.

O.K. National Instruments is about as close-mouthed about some
things as Apple was about some things in the Mac -- before OS-X.

The 16 bit A/D worked surprisingly well inside the noisy Mac II
chassis. The least significant bit bounced a little, that's all. I
ran the bus power through high quality Analog Devices DC-DC converters
to quiet it. I tried testing its dynamic response as an audio spectrum
analyzer but only found that the Mac sucks eggs as a real-time data
acquisition system. I had much better luck later generating accurate
timing on a PC running DOS.

:-)

Which OS for the Macs? Their fully proprietary one, or OS-X,
which is at least unix-based. Not that I would expect either to be
particularly good at real-time I/O. :-)

But in the days before that, at the Army R&D lab where I worked,
you could not purchase anything called a "computer" for use in the
lab.
(The exception was the one IBM 370.) So, to get a computer, you had
to
call it something like "an instrument controller". :-)


Add LabVIEW and a GPIB card and that's exactly what it is.

Bub -- before those were available, it was easier to get an HP
desktop machine and call it an instrument controller. And it would have
built in the HPIB (before the name got changed to GPIB or IEEE-488. :-)

For that matter -- I have a couple of examples of Tektronix 6130
systems with built-in GPIB, and as an OS a Tek modified version of BSD
4.2.

My task at Unitrode was to turn any customer's lab computer into an
"instrument controller" to run application boards for new ICs without
modifying it. We did it with an I2C bus adapter that plugged into the
printer port and a floppy or flash drive that boots DOS. I bought
Visual Basic and then discovered it won't talk to the I/O address
space.

Hmm flash drives came around a bit later, too.

Enjoy,
DoN.

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"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...
On 2017-03-20, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...

[ ... ]

40:17 and 40:18 show the current up or pressed state of the
non-printing control keys. I checked them when my programs asked
the
user to "press any key" and flashed the screen alarmingly when some
joker pressed Shift.

What about if the joker decided to spell out "any". :-)

Another tech checked my programs for user friendliness and pointed out
the possible misinterpretations I was too familiar with the program to
notice.

If the engineer pushed the keyboard back on the crowded lab bench to
make room to write notes they might only be able to reach the bottom
rows, so I made Ctrl, Alt and Shift useable as Any Key to step through
the program. The arrow keys navigated through the display of binary
registers and Space toggled the highlighted bit. They still had to
reach Enter to load the registers into the target device.

Since they didn't make measurements while changing the program setup
they could pull the keyboard forward and use all the keys, for
instance to save the current settings in a *.ini file.

................
Which OS for the Macs? Their fully proprietary one, or OS-X,
which is at least unix-based. Not that I would expect either to be
particularly good at real-time I/O. :-)

That was the early 90's so AFAIK the "Classic" Mac OS. All that
mattered to me was that the engineer was satisfied with my efforts to
design and build what they couldn't buy. There were many opportunities
in the broad gap between Ph.Ds and lab techs if I could demonstrate
that I could handle them.

DOS was fine in real time before SpeedStep, as long as I could
accomplish everything after a clock tick and then wait for the next
one. The gap is about 55 mS, the interrupt service 20 uS. After
fussing with my 900 KHz homebrew it was amazing to watch a FOR loop
execute at 2 nS per pass.

But in the days before that, at the Army R&D lab where I worked,
you could not purchase anything called a "computer" for use in the
lab.
(The exception was the one IBM 370.) So, to get a computer, you
had
to
call it something like "an instrument controller". :-)


Add LabVIEW and a GPIB card and that's exactly what it is.

Bub -- before those were available, it was easier to get an HP
desktop machine and call it an instrument controller. And it would
have
built in the HPIB (before the name got changed to GPIB or IEEE-488.
:-)

For that matter -- I have a couple of examples of Tektronix 6130
systems with built-in GPIB, and as an OS a Tek modified version of
BSD
4.2.

My experience with the 8080 was enough to quickly solve problems by
programming the PC-AT and an HP 1000 in Assembly. When I came up with
an out-of-the-box way to solve a sticky problem I only got to
implement the simple ones, otherwise an engineer would do it and take
credit. What counted was that they included me in the next new product
team and gave me some design work.

-jsw

"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...
On 2017-03-20, Jim Wilkins wrote:

40:17 and 40:18 show the current up or pressed state of the
non-printing control keys. I checked them when my programs asked
the
user to "press any key" and flashed the screen alarmingly when some
joker pressed Shift.

What about if the joker decided to spell out "any". :-)

Each key press would be parsed immediately as a command or operand.

I wrote a replacement key input function that didn't wait for Enter.
It returned one 1-or-2-byte character from the keyboard buffer or 0 if
it was empty and let the main program loop continue, thus it could
detect Escape or any other key including F1-12, and the program could
also check other inputs and read in commands stored in a macro file
and still exit if the user hit ESC.

It worked pretty well for a hardware control progam with few real-time
commands where the keyboard wasn't in a good typing position.
-jsw.

On 2017-03-21, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...
On 2017-03-20, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...

[ ... ]

40:17 and 40:18 show the current up or pressed state of the
non-printing control keys. I checked them when my programs asked
the
user to "press any key" and flashed the screen alarmingly when some
joker pressed Shift.

What about if the joker decided to spell out "any". :-)

Another tech checked my programs for user friendliness and pointed out
the possible misinterpretations I was too familiar with the program to
notice.

O.K. That is alwasy a potential problem.

If the engineer pushed the keyboard back on the crowded lab bench to
make room to write notes they might only be able to reach the bottom
rows, so I made Ctrl, Alt and Shift useable as Any Key to step through
the program. The arrow keys navigated through the display of binary
registers and Space toggled the highlighted bit. They still had to
reach Enter to load the registers into the target device.

Good enough.

Since they didn't make measurements while changing the program setup
they could pull the keyboard forward and use all the keys, for
instance to save the current settings in a *.ini file.

O.K. An under-workbench-top pull-out keyboard shelf could help,
too.

................
Which OS for the Macs? Their fully proprietary one, or OS-X,
which is at least unix-based. Not that I would expect either to be
particularly good at real-time I/O. :-)

That was the early 90's so AFAIK the "Classic" Mac OS. All that
mattered to me was that the engineer was satisfied with my efforts to
design and build what they couldn't buy. There were many opportunities
in the broad gap between Ph.Ds and lab techs if I could demonstrate
that I could handle them.

Yep. I've never used the "Classic" Mac OS, but pretty much any
unix (unless it has a real-time package under it) is not good for
high rep-rate interrput service. (For CNC controllers, one option with
a unix-alike is a linux with a special real-time modification.

DOS was fine in real time before SpeedStep, as long as I could
accomplish everything after a clock tick and then wait for the next
one. The gap is about 55 mS, the interrupt service 20 uS. After
fussing with my 900 KHz homebrew it was amazing to watch a FOR loop
execute at 2 nS per pass.

I've never encounterd SpeedStep. Which DOS did it first appear
in?

[ ... ]

call it something like "an instrument controller". :-)


Add LabVIEW and a GPIB card and that's exactly what it is.

Bub -- before those were available, it was easier to get an HP

Sorry -- that should have been "But" not "Bub". Spelling
checker considered it valid, so it did not call my attention to it. Not
a word I normally use.

desktop machine and call it an instrument controller. And it would
have
built in the HPIB (before the name got changed to GPIB or IEEE-488.
:-)

For that matter -- I have a couple of examples of Tektronix 6130
systems with built-in GPIB, and as an OS a Tek modified version of
BSD
4.2.

My experience with the 8080 was enough to quickly solve problems by
programming the PC-AT and an HP 1000 in Assembly. When I came up with
an out-of-the-box way to solve a sticky problem I only got to
implement the simple ones, otherwise an engineer would do it and take
credit. What counted was that they included me in the next new product
team and gave me some design work.

That works.

Enjoy,
DoN.

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--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

On 2017-03-21, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...
On 2017-03-20, Jim Wilkins wrote:

40:17 and 40:18 show the current up or pressed state of the
non-printing control keys. I checked them when my programs asked
the
user to "press any key" and flashed the screen alarmingly when some
joker pressed Shift.

What about if the joker decided to spell out "any". :-)

Each key press would be parsed immediately as a command or operand.

O.K. No option for that, then.

I wrote a replacement key input function that didn't wait for Enter.
It returned one 1-or-2-byte character from the keyboard buffer or 0 if
it was empty and let the main program loop continue, thus it could
detect Escape or any other key including F1-12, and the program could
also check other inputs and read in commands stored in a macro file
and still exit if the user hit ESC.

It worked pretty well for a hardware control progam with few real-time
commands where the keyboard wasn't in a good typing position.
-jsw.

And on a lab bench, that is a common situation.

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
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Email: | (KV4PH) Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
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"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...
On 2017-03-21, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...
On 2017-03-20, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...
[ ... ]

O.K. An under-workbench-top pull-out keyboard shelf could help,
too.

That's what I have here, with a coffeeproof "medical" keyboard the
same width as a laptop's to leave room for the mouse pad, and a small
light under the desk to illuminate it without needing much room light,
as the keyboard's backlight is ineffective.

I normally have two laptops on the static mat and the speakers, 19"
and 22" monitors that extend the laptop screens on the shelf above.
The woofer is on a shelf underneath. The remote temperature displays
for my woodstove and the food cooking on it are above the monitors. I
get a lot of use from this small space.

I modified a reclining office chair by replacing the arms with angle
plates that raise the back to be a headrest and let it roll out of the
way under the keyboard.

................
DOS was fine in real time before SpeedStep, ...

I've never encounterd SpeedStep. Which DOS did it first appear
in?

http://www.overclock.net/t/376099/sp...n-i-told-it-to

[ ... ]
Add LabVIEW and a GPIB card and that's exactly what it is.

Bub -- before those were available, it was easier to get an HP

Sorry -- that should have been "But" not "Bub". Spelling
checker considered it valid, so it did not call my attention to it.
Not
a word I normally use.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bubbala

-jsw

On 2017-03-22, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...
On 2017-03-21, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...
On 2017-03-20, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...
[ ... ]

O.K. An under-workbench-top pull-out keyboard shelf could help,
too.

That's what I have here, with a coffeeproof "medical" keyboard the
same width as a laptop's to leave room for the mouse pad, and a small
light under the desk to illuminate it without needing much room light,
as the keyboard's backlight is ineffective.

O.K. I have one of those keyboards from a hamfest, after seeing
them in the emergency room, but at least the one which I have appears to
require varying (sometimes excessive) pressures for different keys.
(Also, I really like Sun keyboards, which offer extra keys which the OS
(Solaris 10) uses well. For Linux and most other OSes, the extra keys
are pretty much useless. :-)

No need for coffeeprofing -- but at one period,
Coca-Cola-proofing would have been a help. :-) (At least that washes out
fairly well, and draining the keyboard afterwards and letting it dry for
a couple of days. The old TI Silent-700 keyboard actually survived a
dose of squirrel urine with a similar washing and drying. :-)

I normally have two laptops on the static mat and the speakers, 19"
and 22" monitors that extend the laptop screens on the shelf above.
The woofer is on a shelf underneath. The remote temperature displays
for my woodstove and the food cooking on it are above the monitors. I
get a lot of use from this small space.

O.K. I don't normally use speakers on the computers -- good
quality headphones when I care about the sound -- and not interfere with
what my wife is listening to.

I modified a reclining office chair by replacing the arms with angle
plates that raise the back to be a headrest and let it roll out of the
way under the keyboard.

Sounds like an interesting modification.

DOS was fine in real time before SpeedStep, ...

I've never encountered SpeedStep. Which DOS did it first appear
in?

http://www.overclock.net/t/376099/sp...n-i-told-it-to

Interesting. At least that suggests that it can be disabled.
Since I doubt that it would recognize something not written or blessed
by Microsoft to tune the CPU speed. :-)

[ ... ]
Add LabVIEW and a GPIB card and that's exactly what it is.

Bub -- before those were available, it was easier to get an HP

Sorry -- that should have been "But" not "Bub". Spelling
checker considered it valid, so it did not call my attention to it.
Not
a word I normally use.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bubbala

I'm familiar with it in various flavors -- I just normally don't
*use* it, and certainly would not have typed it there intentionally.

I wonder how many cycles of exchanges are left before my system
starts objecting to the length of the "References: " header, and I have
to manually trim it? :-)

Enjoy,
DoN.

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--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...
On 2017-03-22, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...
On 2017-03-21, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...
On 2017-03-20, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...
[ ... ]

That's what I have here, with a coffeeproof "medical" keyboard ...

O.K. I have one of those keyboards from a hamfest, after seeing
them in the emergency room, but at least the one which I have
appears to
require varying (sometimes excessive) pressures for different keys.

I didn't recommend this overpriced, unimpressive one. The cheap
flexible ones I tried soon failed.

O.K. I don't normally use speakers on the computers -- good
quality headphones when I care about the sound -- and not interfere
with
what my wife is listening to.

The speakers are for musical TV programs, mostly on PBS though music
is sneaking into other shows, most recently The Flash. I knew Melissa
Benoist (Supergirl) could sing but not Victor Garber or John
Barrowman. I use old laptops running Win 7 Media Center as
battery-powered portable TVs that can record.
http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_dualhd.html
https://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.p...e_WinTV-dualHD
Lack of hardware drivers is what has kept me from *nix. I boot a
Debian CD for rwx access to hidden Dell partitions.

I wonder how many cycles of exchanges are left before my system
starts objecting to the length of the "References: " header, and I
have
to manually trim it? :-)

That problem hits mine too. When I was on a Mac at Mitre I could edit
the headers, a useful skill in the combative arguments in
rec.arts.sf.tv. I quit when the shows' writers complained that posting
a plot idea prevented them from using it.

-jsw

On 2017-03-23, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...
On 2017-03-22, Jim Wilkins wrote:

[ ... ]

That's what I have here, with a coffeeproof "medical" keyboard ...

O.K. I have one of those keyboards from a hamfest, after seeing
them in the emergency room, but at least the one which I have
appears to
require varying (sometimes excessive) pressures for different keys.

I didn't recommend this overpriced, unimpressive one. The cheap
flexible ones I tried soon failed.

This one is labeled on the back "Really Cool Keyboard" and
"MMI".

I let it sit for a couple of years, and just re-tried it. The
keys which require excessive pressure are "ert" and "asdf" -- a fairly
small zone, and I think that something had applied too much pressure to
it in storage or something of the sort.j

While there is a flexible membrane all around it, the base is
rather rigid, so I don't know whether it is what you were talking about.

It is sufficient to serve in my machine shop, to talk to the CNC
controller at need, and resist splashes of coolant and oil, but not for
general purpose typing.

And for general purpose use, it does not have the extra keys
that the Sun keyboards have, and the Sun OS works better with.

O.K. I don't normally use speakers on the computers -- good
quality headphones when I care about the sound -- and not interfere
with
what my wife is listening to.

The speakers are for musical TV programs, mostly on PBS though music
is sneaking into other shows, most recently The Flash. I knew Melissa
Benoist (Supergirl) could sing but not Victor Garber or John
Barrowman. I use old laptops running Win 7 Media Center as
battery-powered portable TVs that can record.
http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_dualhd.html
https://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.p...e_WinTV-dualHD
Lack of hardware drivers is what has kept me from *nix. I boot a
Debian CD for rwx access to hidden Dell partitions.

O.K. I don't get TV through the computers, and don't spend much
time looking at it anyway. :-)

I wonder how many cycles of exchanges are left before my system
starts objecting to the length of the "References: " header, and I
have
to manually trim it? :-)

That problem hits mine too. When I was on a Mac at Mitre I could edit
the headers, a useful skill in the combative arguments in
rec.arts.sf.tv. I quit when the shows' writers complained that posting
a plot idea prevented them from using it.

It was up to 924 characters for a single line, so I just
truncated it preemptively. I use slrn for my newsreader (on Sun's
Solaris) so it offers a bit more flexibility than most newsreaders on
Windows systems.

Enjoy,
DoN.

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On Sunday, March 19, 2017 at 8:46:39 PM UTC-7, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...
On 2017-03-19, Jim Wilkins wrote:

The Mac was difficult because plug-ins are supposed to have a
driver
in ROM at the top of the slot's address block, written by an Apple
Certified Programmer. When I gave him the simple register model for
my
16 bit A/D converter he quoted 3 months to write it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NuBus
"In order to select the proper device driver, NuBus included an ID
scheme that allowed the cards to identify themselves to the host
computer during startup."

"On the downside, while this flexibility made NuBus much simpler for
the user and device driver authors, it made things more difficult for
the designers of the cards themselves."

The benefit, was that you could put as many video cards or whatnot
as you wanted, in any slot, without worrying about allocation of the
interrupts or addresses, and they could work at boot without any
driver install. Every bus slot had unique addresses for that ROM,
there were never collisions.

There was lots of cheating, though: when OS 7.5 was licensed across
non-Apple computers, the licensees used to have problems: the
boot ROMs they were authorized to copy, were only tested on the Apple
product, and didn't fully support machines with more bus slots
(since Apple made a 3-slot machine, some cards were only recognized
in the first three slots of a 6-slot clone).

"whit3rd" wrote in message
...
On Sunday, March 19, 2017 at 8:46:39 PM UTC-7, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...
On 2017-03-19, Jim Wilkins wrote:

The Mac was difficult because plug-ins are supposed to have a
driver
in ROM at the top of the slot's address block, written by an
Apple
Certified Programmer. When I gave him the simple register model
for
my
16 bit A/D converter he quoted 3 months to write it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NuBus
"In order to select the proper device driver, NuBus included an ID
scheme that allowed the cards to identify themselves to the host
computer during startup."

"On the downside, while this flexibility made NuBus much simpler
for
the user and device driver authors, it made things more difficult
for
the designers of the cards themselves."

The benefit, was that you could put as many video cards or whatnot
as you wanted, in any slot, without worrying about allocation of the
interrupts or addresses, and they could work at boot without any
driver install. Every bus slot had unique addresses for that ROM,
there were never collisions.

There was lots of cheating, though: when OS 7.5 was licensed across
non-Apple computers, the licensees used to have problems: the
boot ROMs they were authorized to copy, were only tested on the
Apple
product, and didn't fully support machines with more bus slots
(since Apple made a 3-slot machine, some cards were only recognized
in the first three slots of a 6-slot clone).

The high order address of the slot I used was hard-wired to hex C.
IIRC the ID and driver was stored backwards in ROM so that it always
began at CFFF... and could be any length.

The engineers must have known about the Apple Certified Programmer
requirement before they dumped the project on me, a newly hired and
unproven lab tech.

The next big project they gave me couldn't be done "right" within the
specs and constraints. I solved it the Earl Muntz way, which no
respectable engineer would admit to but a lab tech could get away with
by hand-selecting parts on each board.
-jsw

On 14 Mar 2017 04:03:19 GMT, "DoN. Nichols"
wrote:

On 2017-03-13, Larry Jaques wrote:
On Sun, 12 Mar 2017 10:30:01 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

"Steve W." wrote in message
news David R. Birch wrote:

[ ... ]

Has anyone here done this or have more info?

Since solar runs 12-48vdc battery systems and garage openers run at
120vac, it would have to be run on an inverter. I've never seen a
dedicated system for a garage door.

With a bit of re-design, it could be run with a 12V or 24V DC
motor, and a regulator to provide the desired voltage for the
electronics.

Major redesign, different motor, etc., but doable with patience and
deeper pockets, I guess.



[ ... ]

Solar panel voltage and load current are useful to check during setup
but I don't think they are worth the cost of dedicated meters unless
you have problems or keep tinkering with it. An ammeter in the load
cable will affect the low voltage cutoff.

By what, 0.3v (a diode drop), Jim? Will a shunted ammeter also cause
troubles like this? What's your depth of discharge, anyway? Sounds
too deep.

Most older shunted ammeters have a 50 mV movement and a shunt to
assure that at the maximum current, the output is 50 mV -- a lot less
than a diode drop.

My system uses non-gendered Anderson Powerpoles to connect the
components and a meter like this can be temporarily inserted to
measure voltage and current.

Wish I had the good luck you guys seem to with those, but the lone
pair I've used has been trouble 2 out of 3 times I've used it.

If you have the right crimper for the wire you are using (and
there are various sized pins to match, all of which fit the same
blocks), they can be very good. The one trouble which I was fighting in
the power input to a 2-meter transceiver was eventually traced to an
intermittent fuse in an inline holder just upstream of the PowerPole
connector.

Soldering the pins is bad news, however. It makes them rotate
at strange angles in the block and makes for intermittent connections.

I'll remove mine from the shell and see if I can get them to stay in
place better. But the thief who stole my BOB also took my remote for
the winch, which was in the ashtray. Gotta call HFT for one soon.

[ ... ]

The Amp-Hours total is useful on solar systems. It will preserve the
reading if you add a 9V battery to keep it powered through the JST
connector (from an RC hobby store.) Watt-Hours is less useful because
the battery discharges at a lower voltage than it charges.

Huh? 'Taint a 9v connector.

There is a tiny 3-pin connector lurking beside the input power
cable. (This on my "Turnigy" brand metering module) which says that it
accepts between 4.8 V and 60 V And it is rated to measure current up to
130 A. It constantly displays instantaneous current and voltage, and a
smaller part of the display cycles through a number of readings,
including A-H, peak amps, and several others.

The label on mine says "peacefair" and it has no such terminal, nor do
the blue metal jobs.


[ ... ]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_wire_gauge
If you are accustomed to 120V wiring the relatively higher resistance
loss at 12V is surprising. 25' of 14 AWG wire pair drops 1.25V at 10A.

In other words you may want the battery very close to the AC inverter.

Yeah, 6' or less, please.

Unless you have serious wire available. How much 4-0 wire would
it take to produce the same drop? :-)

The inverters all say to use heavy wire and limit to 10' or less, even
with 4/0ga. Specs are shown at 3', 6', and 10' on my 2kw HF inverter.


The 120V wiring to the motor in the center of the ceiling could be
longer and the wiring to the solar panel controller long enough to put
it within reach on the wall. An external port like a weatherproof
trailer connector would let you charge a dead battery to open the
door.

I'll be running 4ga for the 900W heater element @ 35'.

Better -- but if you really want to minimize drop go for 4-0
wire. :-)

The 4ga was $86 and the 4/0 was $355, thanks.

--
The more you know, the less you need.
-- Aboriginal Saying

On Sat, 11 Mar 2017 23:30:46 -0500, "Steve W."
wrote:

David R. Birch wrote:
I've been think about installing this in my garage which has no
electricity running to it. I've googled "Solar Powered Garage Door
Opener" and only found general talk, no one who's actually done it and
no company that makes one.

Has anyone here done this or have more info?

David

Shouldn't be that hard. Solar panels to battery bank. Inverter off
battery bank. Just make sure the inverter can handle the load.

That's a jerry-rig solution that would require the solar panels to
supply enough power to run the inverter and its losses as well as the
garage door opener's receiver losses 24 hours a day. The constant
cycling of the batteries (whether the door is used or not) will
quickly wear out the batteries and the system will fail totally after
a few cloudy days.

Since I'm an engineer, I'd do an engineered solution. I'd start out
with the motor. The 60hz motor is jettisoned and a brushless DC motor
is substituted. A suitable motor would be a large Radio Controlled
model truck or car motor. An RC controller would also be a good
choice to drive the motor. The RC controller requires an AC signal
input whose duty cycle is varied to vary the speed.

That signal is easily generated by {single board computer (SBC) of
your choice}. Most folks will reflexively spurt "Arduino". I very
much dislike the board because of the software development
environment. I'd use a TI RocketBoard. Cheaper, much more capable
and the development environment is very nice.

Also connected to the SBC is a 433 MHz remote control receiver that
listens for the output of a matching key fob. And of course the
various safeties.

Operation would be as follows. In the idle state the motor controller
is powered down via a relay. The SBC is in "doze" mode where it
sleeps most of the time but wakes up to check the remote control
receiver a few times a second. When it receives a signal, the board
wakes up, closes the relay to power the motor controller and
accelerates the door at a rate calculated to put low strain on the
door while achieving maximum speed.

This is in sharp contrast to a standard opener which snaps the motor
on which accelerates up to full speed practically instantly and
literally yanks the door open. The gearing has to be low enough that
the door isn't damaged by the yank. The result is very slow opening.

This system would accelerate the door to a predetermined point where
it would decelerate the door to a stop. Opening and closing could be
done in a few seconds. And if a safety is tripped, the controller can
stop the motor literally within a revolution or two. High stress on
the door but better than having the 60 Hz motor coast down.

The receiver draws a few microamps at (usually) 5 volts. The SBC
draws similarly low power in doze mode. Thus the system could survive
very long periods of no sunlight.

Lead-acid batteries would work just fine, though I might visit the
salvage yard and get some lithium ion batteries out of a wrecked
electric car or Prius just to be high tech.

Given that this is a mechanical group, the electronics and programming
may be a bit much. What I suggest is going to sci.electronics.design
and pitching this project as a nice open source senior EE project. It
would make a great senior project (probably done for free) that some
student would jump on. And as an open source project, others could
easily duplicate it since all the hard work has been done.

I did a somewhat similar project about 40 years ago. Then I used a 90
VDC servo motor and a designed-from-scratch analog computer for motion
control. No need for solar power nor economizing on power usage. I
just wanted to do a motion control project and the garage door seemed
like a likely candidate. Worked great and startled the neighbors,
both desired goals :-)

John
John DeArmond
http://www.neon-john.com
http://www.tnduction.com
Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
See website for email address

On 3/11/2017 1:44 PM, David R. Birch wrote:
I've been think about installing this in my garage which has no
electricity running to it. I've googled "Solar Powered Garage Door
Opener" and only found general talk, no one who's actually done it and
no company that makes one.

Has anyone here done this or have more info?

David

Amazing # of answers that don't address my question.

From what I can find, many garage door openers use 12v or 24v motors
with a step down transformer. Bypassing that transformer seems the way
to go.

Much talk about how to construct a system that I've seen elsewhere,
nothing from any who have actually done it.

I don't see any reason why the concept is flawed, so why isn't there a
complete system on the market already? Maybe this is my road to vast wealth?

OTOH, considering what I've paid for these gems of wisdom, what did I
expect?

:^)

David


---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
http://www.avg.com

"David R. Birch" wrote in message
news
On 3/11/2017 1:44 PM, David R. Birch wrote:
I've been think about installing this in my garage which has no
electricity running to it. I've googled "Solar Powered Garage Door
Opener" and only found general talk, no one who's actually done it
and
no company that makes one.

Has anyone here done this or have more info?

David

Amazing # of answers that don't address my question.

From what I can find, many garage door openers use 12v or 24v motors
with a step down transformer. Bypassing that transformer seems the
way to go.

Much talk about how to construct a system that I've seen elsewhere,
nothing from any who have actually done it.

I don't see any reason why the concept is flawed, so why isn't there
a complete system on the market already? Maybe this is my road to
vast wealth?

OTOH, considering what I've paid for these gems of wisdom, what did
I expect?

:^)

David

Try searching for backup batteries for commercial 12V door openers,
you'll see who makes suitable candidates.
-jsw

On Mon, 27 Mar 2017 10:39:22 -0500, "David R. Birch"
wrote:

On 3/11/2017 1:44 PM, David R. Birch wrote:
I've been think about installing this in my garage which has no
electricity running to it. I've googled "Solar Powered Garage Door
Opener" and only found general talk, no one who's actually done it and
no company that makes one.

Has anyone here done this or have more info?

David

Amazing # of answers that don't address my question.

And yet, nobody offered a way to convert a solar gate opener, or
suggested you change your door to suit one of those. Not enough
retired guys looking to share their thoughts I guess.

From what I can find, many garage door openers use 12v or 24v motors
with a step down transformer. Bypassing that transformer seems the way
to go.

A small inverter can do the job, which is easier than reinventing the
wheel. You'll need a PV module, charge controller and battery either
way. Those things will be cheaper to buy separately than built into a
niche product.

Much talk about how to construct a system that I've seen elsewhere,
nothing from any who have actually done it.

I described my own backup system, which is something I've done and
which works. It is charged with grid power. Substitute solar, bypass
the parasite safety circuit energy waste and Bob's your Uncle.

I don't see any reason why the concept is flawed, so why isn't there a
complete system on the market already?

Most people who need a solar powered garage door opener need other
things powered by solar as well. So they build a system that powers
everything, and there is tons of that stuff on the mass market. People
who need a garage door opener *only* usually find that running a wire
from the house is cheaper and better, and saves them needing to bypass
the safety circuit or making the solar system larger.
http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/...ers-are-always

Maybe this is my road to vast wealth?

Safety circuit is mandatory for code, mortgage, and insurance. A DC
opener with or without an approved lower current safety circuit is a
niche among niches.

Good old Harbor Freight has a panel and sells the electronics to make
?12V? - have to check the site. Might have a 120v a.c. driven from a
battery and an inverter. Likely need a charger from the panel.

Martin

On 3/27/2017 10:39 AM, David R. Birch wrote:
On 3/11/2017 1:44 PM, David R. Birch wrote:
I've been think about installing this in my garage which has no
electricity running to it. I've googled "Solar Powered Garage Door
Opener" and only found general talk, no one who's actually done it and
no company that makes one.

Has anyone here done this or have more info?

David

Amazing # of answers that don't address my question.

From what I can find, many garage door openers use 12v or 24v motors
with a step down transformer. Bypassing that transformer seems the way
to go.

Much talk about how to construct a system that I've seen elsewhere,
nothing from any who have actually done it.

I don't see any reason why the concept is flawed, so why isn't there a
complete system on the market already? Maybe this is my road to vast
wealth?

OTOH, considering what I've paid for these gems of wisdom, what did I
expect?

:^)

David


---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
http://www.avg.com

"Martin Eastburn" wrote in message
...
Good old Harbor Freight has a panel and sells the electronics to
make
?12V? - have to check the site. Might have a 120v a.c. driven from
a battery and an inverter. Likely need a charger from the panel.

Martin

The HF kit is a good start with everything you need except extension
wire but don't count on 45 Watts from it with the included PWM
controller. System losses and the mismatch between the 17V maximum
power point of the panels and the 12V of the battery reduced the net
power from mine to about 30W initially in 2011 and barely 20W now,
1.5A at 14V. It puts closer to 2A into a partly discharged battery.
The short circuit current nearly pegged the 3A meter I tested and
aimed it with.

Part of the wattage loss is the inescapable difference between a
battery's 14V charging and 12.6V discharge voltage.

If aimed due South it produces close to full power for about 4 hours,
in my case intermittently limited by tree shadows so I can't predict
the amp-hours someone else with a better site might get.

-jsw

On 2017-03-24, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"whit3rd" wrote in message
...
On Sunday, March 19, 2017 at 8:46:39 PM UTC-7, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...

[ ... ]

The benefit, was that you could put as many video cards or whatnot
as you wanted, in any slot, without worrying about allocation of the
interrupts or addresses, and they could work at boot without any
driver install. Every bus slot had unique addresses for that ROM,
there were never collisions.

There was lots of cheating, though: when OS 7.5 was licensed across
non-Apple computers, the licensees used to have problems: the
boot ROMs they were authorized to copy, were only tested on the
Apple
product, and didn't fully support machines with more bus slots
(since Apple made a 3-slot machine, some cards were only recognized
in the first three slots of a 6-slot clone).

The high order address of the slot I used was hard-wired to hex C.
IIRC the ID and driver was stored backwards in ROM so that it always
began at CFFF... and could be any length.

The engineers must have known about the Apple Certified Programmer
requirement before they dumped the project on me, a newly hired and
unproven lab tech.

Giving you a chance to prove your ability. :-)

The next big project they gave me couldn't be done "right" within the
specs and constraints. I solved it the Earl Muntz way, which no
respectable engineer would admit to but a lab tech could get away with
by hand-selecting parts on each board.
-jsw

I thought that the Earl Muntz way was to keep snipping out
components from a working TV design until it stopped working and then
put that last component back. :-)

BTW -- Sorry about the delay. My firewall system died and it took me a few
days to re-learn enough about the program to configure a new one
in new hardware to get on the air again.

Now -- the easy way would have been to go on eBay and purchace a
replacement power supply for that system (not a common one, and not room
to kluge something else into a 1U high system), but without a working
firewall, eBay was out of reach. (Besides, it might have taken
longer to find a replacement anyway. :-)

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
Remove oil spill source from e-mail
Email: | (KV4PH) Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...
On 2017-03-24, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"whit3rd" wrote in message
....
The engineers must have known about the Apple Certified Programmer
requirement before they dumped the project on me, a newly hired and
unproven lab tech.

Giving you a chance to prove your ability. :-)

The next big project they gave me couldn't be done "right" within
the
specs and constraints. I solved it the Earl Muntz way, which no
respectable engineer would admit to but a lab tech could get away
with
by hand-selecting parts on each board.
-jsw

I thought that the Earl Muntz way was to keep snipping out
components from a working TV design until it stopped working and
then
put that last component back. :-)

I snipped the feature-creep from the specs as far as the engineers
would allow. The original was overdesigned and the contractor was
behind schedule, so this was a quickie stand-in. I called it the
world's biggest, fastest wris****ch.

BTW -- Sorry about the delay. My firewall system died and it took
me a few
days to re-learn enough about the program to configure a new one
in new hardware to get on the air again.

Now -- the easy way would have been to go on eBay and purchace a
replacement power supply for that system (not a common one, and not
room
to kluge something else into a 1U high system), but without a
working
firewall, eBay was out of reach. (Besides, it might have taken
longer to find a replacement anyway. :-)

Enjoy,
DoN.

VME bus?

-jsw

"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...
On 2017-03-24, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"whit3rd" wrote in message

BTW -- Sorry about the delay. My firewall system died and it took
me a few
days to re-learn enough about the program to configure a new one
in new hardware to get on the air again.

Now -- the easy way would have been to go on eBay and purchace a
replacement power supply for that system (not a common one, and not
room
to kluge something else into a 1U high system), but without a
working
firewall, eBay was out of reach. (Besides, it might have taken
longer to find a replacement anyway. :-)

Enjoy,
DoN.

If you need cheap backup Internet access, XP still works with IE8, and
better with Firefox. This laptop is only a 1.6 GHz single-core on
dialup.

Malware hasn't been a problem but if you worry about it you can backup
or clone the hard drive with free software, then wipe and restore an
infected (or user-damaged) drive.

I do have a newer, faster Win7 system nearly ready to replace it. That
"broken" laptop cost me $1 at a flea market, plus $40 for an SSD.

-jsw

On Wed, 29 Mar 2017 08:12:45 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...
On 2017-03-24, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"whit3rd" wrote in message

BTW -- Sorry about the delay. My firewall system died and it took
me a few
days to re-learn enough about the program to configure a new one
in new hardware to get on the air again.

Now -- the easy way would have been to go on eBay and purchace a
replacement power supply for that system (not a common one, and not
room
to kluge something else into a 1U high system), but without a
working
firewall, eBay was out of reach. (Besides, it might have taken
longer to find a replacement anyway. :-)

Enjoy,
DoN.

If you need cheap backup Internet access, XP still works with IE8, and
better with Firefox. This laptop is only a 1.6 GHz single-core on
dialup.

Malware hasn't been a problem but if you worry about it you can backup
or clone the hard drive with free software, then wipe and restore an
infected (or user-damaged) drive.

I do have a newer, faster Win7 system nearly ready to replace it. That
"broken" laptop cost me $1 at a flea market, plus $40 for an SSD.

You're lucky that Usenet is text-only with a dialup system. What else
do you access with it? I remember my dialup years with horror and
pain, all the way back to watching individual characters show up on my
screen @ 1200baud. (I avoided 300baud by starting late.)

I limp along in the high-speed world at a mere 5Mbps DSL link. For
almost 5 years, CenturyLink has bombarded me monthly with ads saying
"Only $20/mo for up to 30Mbps speeds" yet until last year, with my
37th complaint, that they bumped me to 5 from 3Mbps. Watching Netflix
was a pain. Every time it had to rebuffer 60 seconds of data, I'd sit
and wait with a frozen screen. That got old in a hurry.

--
The more you know, the less you need.
-- Aboriginal Saying

"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 29 Mar 2017 08:12:45 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...

If you need cheap backup Internet access, XP still works with IE8,
and
better with Firefox. This laptop is only a 1.6 GHz single-core on
dialup..........


You're lucky that Usenet is text-only with a dialup system. What
else
do you access with it?

All the links I post between 6AM and ~9AM and usually after 6PM came
from dialup. Wiki and Amazon occasionally require Firefox and my
cellular modem but it has a 1.5 GB/mo data allotment that's easy to
use up. I ran up 3 days worth yesterday.

I don't do things I can't make work well, and there's usually at least
one backup.

-jsw

On 2017-03-29, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...

[ ... ]

The next big project they gave me couldn't be done "right" within
the
specs and constraints. I solved it the Earl Muntz way, which no
respectable engineer would admit to but a lab tech could get away
with
by hand-selecting parts on each board.
-jsw

I thought that the Earl Muntz way was to keep snipping out
components from a working TV design until it stopped working and
then
put that last component back. :-)

I snipped the feature-creep from the specs as far as the engineers
would allow. The original was overdesigned and the contractor was
behind schedule, so this was a quickie stand-in. I called it the
world's biggest, fastest wris****ch.

O.K. :-)

BTW -- Sorry about the delay. My firewall system died and it took
me a few
days to re-learn enough about the program to configure a new one
in new hardware to get on the air again.

Now -- the easy way would have been to go on eBay and purchase a
replacement power supply for that system (not a common one, and not
room
to kluge something else into a 1U high system), but without a
working
firewall, eBay was out of reach. (Besides, it might have taken
longer to find a replacement anyway. :-)

Enjoy,
DoN.

VME bus?

Nope! The failed machine was a Sun V120 (1U high chassis, rack
mount). Not room for most common power supplies, and an extra connector
beyond those which are found on more recent ones. The extra connector
goes to the serial management hardware, which allows you to reboot, shut
down and power up from a distance. Not new enough to offer an ethernet
port with ssh logins to do lots of remote maintenance.

All my VME Suns are retired by now. They were Sun3 and early
SPARC systems, not the current UltraSPARC ones.

The power supply is likely victim to failing electrolytics, but
it seems to have been made for high vibration environments, and the
components are all buried in a glob of translucent RTV. A real pain to
cut it out without damaging chokes and the like.

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
Remove oil spill source from e-mail
Email: | (KV4PH) Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

On 2017-03-29, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...
On 2017-03-24, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"whit3rd" wrote in message

BTW -- Sorry about the delay. My firewall system died and it took
me a few
days to re-learn enough about the program to configure a new one
in new hardware to get on the air again.

Now -- the easy way would have been to go on eBay and purchase a
replacement power supply for that system (not a common one, and not
room
to kluge something else into a 1U high system), but without a
working
firewall, eBay was out of reach. (Besides, it might have taken
longer to find a replacement anyway. :-)

Enjoy,
DoN.

If you need cheap backup Internet access, XP still works with IE8, and
better with Firefox. This laptop is only a 1.6 GHz single-core on
dialup.

I make it a practice to not allow Windows of any flavor to
access the net from my interface. Mostly because I don't know enough
about the internals of Windows to turn off everything that I would not
consider safe. Various unix flavors, including Mac's OS-X, I have a
better feel for.

And I've got a T1 feed, with a few systems visible from the
outside (web servers and mail servers) and everything else lurking
behind the firewall on a different IP group.

I guess that I could have connected the laptop with Ubuntu on
it, and easily enough changed its IP to work, but ... :-)

Malware hasn't been a problem but if you worry about it you can backup
or clone the hard drive with free software, then wipe and restore an
infected (or user-damaged) drive.

I do have a newer, faster Win7 system nearly ready to replace it. That
"broken" laptop cost me $1 at a flea market, plus $40 for an SSD.

Spare computers are nice to have.

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
Remove oil spill source from e-mail
Email: | (KV4PH) Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

On Mon, 27 Mar 2017 10:23:44 -0700, Sister Ray wrote:

On Mon, 27 Mar 2017 10:39:22 -0500, "David R. Birch"
wrote:

And yet, nobody offered a way to convert a solar gate opener, or
suggested you change your door to suit one of those. Not enough
retired guys looking to share their thoughts I guess.

Or more likely semi-retired guys like me who have had or do own solar
gate openers and choose not to recommend such wimpy little devices for
the application. Mine isn't strong enough to break one new shoot of
kudzu that grew around the gate while it was open for a day.


From what I can find, many garage door openers use 12v or 24v motors
with a step down transformer. Bypassing that transformer seems the way
to go.

That certainly sounds like an uneconomical way to go unless they use
speed/acceleration control on the motor. I'll be paying attention the
next time I visit a big box store.


A small inverter can do the job, which is easier than reinventing the
wheel. You'll need a PV module, charge controller and battery either
way. Those things will be cheaper to buy separately than built into a
niche product.

Then you're right back to the constant standby losses of the idling
inverter running 24/7. One could, of course, do the switching at the
inverter but that would mean opening up the inverter and doing
something "electronic" which apparently this guy doesn't want to do.


Much talk about how to construct a system that I've seen elsewhere,
nothing from any who have actually done it.

You call it a garage door opener. I call it, for example, a
horizontal sheet mover in a cardboard box builder. Motion control is
motion control. I've designed dozens.

I described an optimized system that would open the door as fast as
possible consistent with not overstressing the door. If he wants a
low performance system built from off-the-shelf parts then he should
have asked for that.

I don't see any reason why the concept is flawed, so why isn't there a
complete system on the market already?

Practically no market for a stand-alone solar door opener. Most
people want other things like oh, let's say lights to also operate in
the garage. If on-grid, the cheapest solution is simply to bury some
NM cable from the house to the garage. Off-grid, either tap off the
existing solar/hydro system if it has the excess capacity with a stock
opener or do a custom one if the capacity is lacking.

The OP got a variety of answers to a very generalized question. If he
wanted a particular type of solution, he should have said so.

John
John DeArmond
http://www.neon-john.com
http://www.tnduction.com
Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
See website for email address

On Sat, 01 Apr 2017 16:29:51 -0400, Neon John wrote:

On Mon, 27 Mar 2017 10:23:44 -0700, Sister Ray wrote:

On Mon, 27 Mar 2017 10:39:22 -0500, "David R. Birch"
wrote:

And yet, nobody offered a way to convert a solar gate opener, or
suggested you change your door to suit one of those. Not enough
retired guys looking to share their thoughts I guess.

Or more likely semi-retired guys like me who have had or do own solar
gate openers and choose not to recommend such wimpy little devices for
the application.

Gate openers come in many flavors. I've worked on some that were far
more substantial than the usual residential garage door openers. Slab
mounted, gear motor plus chain reduction, output shaft to chain or arm
actuator. They do come as solar packages, but that sure would be the
hard to get around buying components.

The OP got a variety of answers to a very generalized question. If he
wanted a particular type of solution, he should have said so.

Looks like the easiest solution for him is a residential opener with
battery backup. Perhaps like this one http://tinyurl.com/loqudja. But
I think he wants everything in one box, as opposed to buying a
battery, panel and charge controller separately. You might package it
up for him and make a few bucks. But once he sees the price, he'll
probably realize that opening that door the old fashioned way isn't
such a bad thing.

On 4/1/2017 3:29 PM, Neon John wrote:
On Mon, 27 Mar 2017 10:23:44 -0700, Sister Ray wrote:

On Mon, 27 Mar 2017 10:39:22 -0500, "David R. Birch"
wrote:

And yet, nobody offered a way to convert a solar gate opener, or
suggested you change your door to suit one of those. Not enough
retired guys looking to share their thoughts I guess.

Or more likely semi-retired guys like me who have had or do own solar
gate openers and choose not to recommend such wimpy little devices for
the application. Mine isn't strong enough to break one new shoot of
kudzu that grew around the gate while it was open for a day.


From what I can find, many garage door openers use 12v or 24v motors
with a step down transformer. Bypassing that transformer seems the way
to go.

That certainly sounds like an uneconomical way to go unless they use
speed/acceleration control on the motor. I'll be paying attention the
next time I visit a big box store.


A small inverter can do the job, which is easier than reinventing the
wheel. You'll need a PV module, charge controller and battery either
way. Those things will be cheaper to buy separately than built into a
niche product.

Then you're right back to the constant standby losses of the idling
inverter running 24/7. One could, of course, do the switching at the
inverter but that would mean opening up the inverter and doing
something "electronic" which apparently this guy doesn't want to do.


Much talk about how to construct a system that I've seen elsewhere,
nothing from any who have actually done it.

You call it a garage door opener. I call it, for example, a
horizontal sheet mover in a cardboard box builder. Motion control is
motion control. I've designed dozens.

I described an optimized system that would open the door as fast as
possible consistent with not overstressing the door. If he wants a
low performance system built from off-the-shelf parts then he should
have asked for that.

I don't see any reason why the concept is flawed, so why isn't there a
complete system on the market already?

Practically no market for a stand-alone solar door opener. Most
people want other things like oh, let's say lights to also operate in
the garage. If on-grid, the cheapest solution is simply to bury some
NM cable from the house to the garage. Off-grid, either tap off the
existing solar/hydro system if it has the excess capacity with a stock
opener or do a custom one if the capacity is lacking.

The OP got a variety of answers to a very generalized question. If he
wanted a particular type of solution, he should have said so.

Thanks for the input. I thought my original post indicated that I was
looking for an existing design, not something I had to develop.

"I've been think about installing this in my garage which has no
electricity running to it. I've googled "Solar Powered Garage Door
Opener" and only found general talk, no one who's actually done it
and no company that makes one.

Has anyone here done this or have more info?"

David


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"David R. Birch" wrote in message
...
On 4/1/2017 3:29 PM, Neon John wrote:
On Mon, 27 Mar 2017 10:23:44 -0700, Sister Ray wrote:

......
The OP got a variety of answers to a very generalized question. If
he
wanted a particular type of solution, he should have said so.

Thanks for the input. I thought my original post indicated that I
was looking for an existing design, not something I had to develop.

"I've been think about installing this in my garage which has no
electricity running to it. I've googled "Solar Powered Garage Door
Opener" and only found general talk, no one who's actually done it
and no company that makes one.

Has anyone here done this or have more info?"

David

No, I haven't done it, and wouldn't attempt to design a solar battery
system that needed high long term reliability without periodic
attention.

Is there a separate entry for when the battery fails? You (= healthy
male) can disconnect and open the door manually if it's properly
balanced, but only from inside.

I already told you how to find a 12V opener with a backup battery that
you could charge with the HF 45 Watt kit.

If that's too much to "develop" you have to ask yourself if you can
install and maintain the system yourself without local expertise. The
pros won't touch DIY installations.
-jsw

On Tue, 4 Apr 2017 18:31:17 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

"David R. Birch" wrote in message
...
On 4/1/2017 3:29 PM, Neon John wrote:
On Mon, 27 Mar 2017 10:23:44 -0700, Sister Ray wrote:

......
The OP got a variety of answers to a very generalized question. If
he
wanted a particular type of solution, he should have said so.

Thanks for the input. I thought my original post indicated that I
was looking for an existing design, not something I had to develop.

"I've been think about installing this in my garage which has no
electricity running to it. I've googled "Solar Powered Garage Door
Opener" and only found general talk, no one who's actually done it
and no company that makes one.

Has anyone here done this or have more info?"

David

No, I haven't done it, and wouldn't attempt to design a solar battery
system that needed high long term reliability without periodic
attention.

Is there a separate entry for when the battery fails? You (= healthy
male) can disconnect and open the door manually if it's properly
balanced, but only from inside.

A well-balanced 16' wide garage door can be opened by teen girls,
moms, and grannies, Jim, not just healthy males. I've balanced many a
door with new springs, and rebalanced a dozen which were sagging. Done
right, they're neutral, so a 15lb pull will overcome the inertia and
open it right up.

--
That's the thing about needs. Sometimes, when you get them met,
you don't need them anymore. -- Michael Patrick King

"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 4 Apr 2017 18:31:17 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

"David R. Birch" wrote in message
...
On 4/1/2017 3:29 PM, Neon John wrote:
On Mon, 27 Mar 2017 10:23:44 -0700, Sister Ray wrote:

......
The OP got a variety of answers to a very generalized question.
If
he
wanted a particular type of solution, he should have said so.

Thanks for the input. I thought my original post indicated that I
was looking for an existing design, not something I had to
develop.

"I've been think about installing this in my garage which has no
electricity running to it. I've googled "Solar Powered Garage Door
Opener" and only found general talk, no one who's actually done it
and no company that makes one.

Has anyone here done this or have more info?"

David

No, I haven't done it, and wouldn't attempt to design a solar
battery
system that needed high long term reliability without periodic
attention.

Is there a separate entry for when the battery fails? You (= healthy
male) can disconnect and open the door manually if it's properly
balanced, but only from inside.

A well-balanced 16' wide garage door can be opened by teen girls,
moms, and grannies, Jim, not just healthy males. I've balanced many
a
door with new springs, and rebalanced a dozen which were sagging.
Done
right, they're neutral, so a 15lb pull will overcome the inertia and
open it right up.

So you know how poorly they can be installed.

On Wed, 5 Apr 2017 14:41:01 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
.. .
On Tue, 4 Apr 2017 18:31:17 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

"David R. Birch" wrote in message
...
On 4/1/2017 3:29 PM, Neon John wrote:
On Mon, 27 Mar 2017 10:23:44 -0700, Sister Ray wrote:

......
The OP got a variety of answers to a very generalized question.
If
he
wanted a particular type of solution, he should have said so.

Thanks for the input. I thought my original post indicated that I
was looking for an existing design, not something I had to
develop.

"I've been think about installing this in my garage which has no
electricity running to it. I've googled "Solar Powered Garage Door
Opener" and only found general talk, no one who's actually done it
and no company that makes one.

Has anyone here done this or have more info?"

David

No, I haven't done it, and wouldn't attempt to design a solar
battery
system that needed high long term reliability without periodic
attention.

Is there a separate entry for when the battery fails? You (= healthy
male) can disconnect and open the door manually if it's properly
balanced, but only from inside.

A well-balanced 16' wide garage door can be opened by teen girls,
moms, and grannies, Jim, not just healthy males. I've balanced many
a
door with new springs, and rebalanced a dozen which were sagging.
Done
right, they're neutral, so a 15lb pull will overcome the inertia and
open it right up.

So you know how poorly they can be installed.

Well, either that or they slipped after vibrating loose...which would
be a poor install, so yeah. :-/

After doing one side of my neighbor's 16' (they didn't want to spend
the money for the extra spring and half an hour's labor), their single
door spring broke within 2 weeks. Amazing! They were about 12 years
old. The single used the opposite spring as the one I replaced on the
dual.

Most owners won't go for both springs, and I've never had to go back
and replace the other side yet. When I first started doing these, the
GD mfgrs wanted $25-30 for winding rods. I swung by the hardware
store and spent $3.49 for a 3' length of 1/2" zinc coated steel rod an
cut it in half, and I still have them.

--
That's the thing about needs. Sometimes, when you get them met,
you don't need them anymore. -- Michael Patrick King