Posts tagged with "diy" - page 2
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DIY Projects
In an earlier post I talked about how we try to do repairs where possible and upkeep things to extend the life of some products. As an extension of that post, we also wondered how we could possibly cut costs by doing some things ourselves instead of buying stuff. This again while it seems like a frugal activity (which it is) also reduces the environmental impact. I know I am talking a lot about environment without even having a degree in it. Well, my life partner has a Masters degree in it (literally).
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Repairs and Upkeep
Over the years I have been doing some repairs and upkeep of various things at home. Most of the things are simple and you probably already know them. But I thought I will just list some of the things I learned. My first piece of advice is that if something breaks, try to repair instead of replacing it. Most likely you are capable of repairing. You just don’t know it yet :). The internet is full of helpful people giving excellent advice on how to repair. What is the worst thing that can happen if you don’t know how to repair? You will break it further and then you can replace it, which is what you were planning to do anyway. You might have wasted a couple of Sunday afternoons trying to repair, but the knowledge you gain and the fun you have putting things together is amazing.
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Follow-up to Virtual Meetup #6
Thank you to everyone who joined virtual meetup #6. As usual, we had some lively discussions. This post is a follow-up to that meeting to answer any questions that I could not answer at the time. So here goes –
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DIY Solar Panel Project - The Ingredients
As I mentioned in the previous post, I decided to go with a hybrid charge controller solution for my solar panel setup. What that basically means is that I will need to buy some solar panels and a hybrid charge controller, since I have a UPS and batteries. I will then have to connect them all together. I wanted to start with something simple, so I decided to just buy one solar panel. At the same time I was intending to build it in such a way that it can be extensible to 3 panels in the future. The goal has always been to have a 1 KW setup.
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Solar Panel Project - Do It Yourself
I was finally ready to install solar panels. After having made all the calculations, I arrived at the fact that I could get the return on investment in 5 years. But I had an even better idea. I decided do build it myself. What better way to learn about solar power except by doing it yourself! I always prefer to do things myself rather than letting some one else do the job for me. My work will be subpar at best, but it not only gives me a great opportunity to learn something new, but is also a lot of fun.
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Solar Panel Project - Inception
I have been wanting to setup solar panels for several years now. It all started way back in August 2015 when for the first time the electricity bill touched Rs. 2,000. We don't even have air conditioner so what gives? At this point I started looking at the past bills and noticed the slow rise in unit rates. If you are interested, I already wrote a post on the inflation of electricity bill. That got me thinking if it is time for some solar panels.
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Building a DIY 5.1 Audio Video Receiver – Part 7
Now that I have the front speakers, rear speakers and sub-woofer working, the next thing I wanted to do in my DIY AVR project was to bring up the center speaker. I ordered a TPA3118 amplifier board for Rs. 379 towards it. The only problem with the board (which I did not realize when I ordered it) was that it does not have a volume control. The repercussions of this mistake will soon become clear. Anyway, I connected the board to a 12V power supply. The same one that was powering the crossover board from my previous post. Output from the board is connected to my center speaker. The sound quality is fine to my ears. Anyway it is the center speaker, so we don't need a great quality output.
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Building a DIY 5.1 Audio Video Receiver – Part 6
In the last post I mentioned that I was looking for a crossover board. The one that I purchased is putting out a huge DC bias and I was not comfortable using it on my sub woofer. Wondering if it is a problem with the particular unit that I got, I ordered a replacement. Unfortunately, even the replacement has the same signature output. So I decided to do something about it myself.
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Building a DIY 5.1 Audio Video Receiver – Part 5
So far I have finished bringing up 4 of my 5.1 speakers in my DIY 5.1 AVR project. If you missed, check out part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4 of the series. Next I wanted to bring up my sub-woofer. Since I have an active sub-woofer, I did not need any amplifiers to drive it. I just need to connect the output signal from my audio source directly to the sub-woofer input. But there is a catch. If you connect the audio source directly to the sub-woofer, the sub would be wasting a lot of energy which may heat up the driver and may damage it. Moreover driving the sub with all the frequencies will give boomy muddled up sound. So we need a low pass filter or a crossover.
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Building a DIY 5.1 Audio Video Receiver – Part 4
As I mentioned in my last post, after measuring the frequency response and testing the TDA 7498, I decided to buy one more. The board I bought earlier did not have the right LC filter for a 6 ohms speaker. It was designed for 8 ohms speaker. So I decided to use that board for my rear surround speakers which were also 6 ohms. However, it is fine to have a slightly poor quality amp for the rarely used rear speakers.
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