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We are now Solar Powered

andrewjvpowell.com

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Re: We are now Solar Powered

#41

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

mackmgg wrote: post #35
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #33

Not directly related to solar-powered-servers, but rather power-involved-in-computing ... I have a solar powered van (not the engine, alas), and it has been amazing to understand how a day of my kind of computing (edit/compile/debug cycle with C++) uses more power than the 12VDC refridgerator in the van. The computer is a small custom built direct-to-12VDC miniITX with an i5 processor. The refridgerator literally has…

If you don't need all of the speed, I'd recommend disabling power boost. My i9 laptop averages ~10-15W with it disabled, compared to the ~20W my fridge uses. Even when maxed out CPU it's only ~40W, compared to ~100W with power boost enabled. That's more than double the power despite only being a modest speed increase!

Given that I spend the day compiling C++ for a project that takes 11 mins to build from scratch, disabling power boost isn't really viable for me.

Re: We are now Solar Powered

#42

Post by jandrese »

Jedd wrote: post #16

> But you can never get around 600~ms pings and limited data allowance ... I'm not sure how that sentence is meant to be parsed, but the NBN Sky Muster Plus packages include unlimited downlink traffic (for everything except streaming video), though of course you're always stuck with satellite latency at ~ 600ms to domestic services ... at least until Starlink saves us all. Though the Starlink phased arrays apparently…

> Though the Starlink phased arrays apparently consume a fairly consistent 100W

Ouch. I hope that's something they can work on with the next version of the ground terminal. Do they at least start up quickly when powered down?

Re: We are now Solar Powered

#44

Post by nostrademons »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #33

Not directly related to solar-powered-servers, but rather power-involved-in-computing ... I have a solar powered van (not the engine, alas), and it has been amazing to understand how a day of my kind of computing (edit/compile/debug cycle with C++) uses more power than the 12VDC refridgerator in the van. The computer is a small custom built direct-to-12VDC miniITX with an i5 processor. The refridgerator literally has…

I've got a PowerWall and the Tesla app (which shows up-to-the-second readouts of your home's production & consumption), and it was shocking how little energy refrigerators and freezers use. Apparently it's because they're extremely well insulated; the compressor only needs to go on to adjust to changes in temperature, and if you don't open the door the temperature won't change much.

There were a bunch of other surprises as well. The baseline load of my house is only about 200W (which seemed shockingly low to me, since I was raised in the era of 100W light bulbs), and it includes every laptop, tablet, phone, and battery charger that's plugged in; refrigerator and chest freezer; TVs and home entertainment on standby; nightlights and other small lamps we leave on; clocks & alarms; and everything else that's running continuously. Our gas heating system, however, uses 500W when on; apparently the blower is electric, and twice as much of a current draw as the rest of the baseline load. During the winter this is our biggest electricity expense, despite being "gas". Dishwashers and washing machines are basically rounding error. Household appliances like vacuum cleaners are also surprisingly low-current. Anything with a heating element is a huge draw though (1-2kW), and that includes clothes dryers, electric thermos, Instapot, microwave, oven, and toaster oven. I can tell when my wife is preparing lunch by looking at the Tesla app.

If there's one thing you can do to save energy, it's probably to dry your clothes on a rack outside rather than the clothes dryer. We've got young kids so we do a lot of laundry, but in summertime probably 2/3 of our total energy usage goes to the clothes dryer, and in winter it's split between that and the gas heating.

Re: We are now Solar Powered

#46

Post by sofixa »

atvatar12 wrote: post #5

A webpage, hosted on a Raspberry Pie, still reachable after mentioned on HN #4. Quite impressive, why do we need CDN again?

For lower latencies across the globe, intelligent caching, not having to deal with a server, serving heavy content, etc.

Re: We are now Solar Powered

#47

Post by jkilpatr »

jandrese wrote: post #42
Jedd wrote: post #16

> But you can never get around 600~ms pings and limited data allowance ... I'm not sure how that sentence is meant to be parsed, but the NBN Sky Muster Plus packages include unlimited downlink traffic (for everything except streaming video), though of course you're always stuck with satellite latency at ~ 600ms to domestic services ... at least until Starlink saves us all. Though the Starlink phased arrays apparently…

> Though the Starlink phased arrays apparently consume a fairly consistent 100W Ouch. I hope that's something they can work on with the next version of the ground terminal. Do they at least start up quickly when powered down?

The power consumption is a fundamental part of how phased array antennas work.

You have hundreds of tiny antennas using constructive and destructive interference to steer the signal in software.

This digital aiming is awesome for targeting fast moving objects in low earth orbit. But you lose the huge amplification factor possible with a simple metal dish.

Combine this with the the desire to use higher attenuation frequencies in order to increase throughput and I don't really see Starlink's power consumption going down.

That power budget already represents a pretty big victory, and any gains will probably go to lower unit cost or higher data rates.

Re: We are now Solar Powered

#48

Post by amanzi »

xupybd wrote: post #43

It's really crappy that US ISPs block ports. I'm in little New Zealand and have a static IP that allows me to host anything I want.

The "port blocking" may just be a symptom of how the modem connects to the internet, rather than being a malicious act by the ISP. CGNAT is becoming a common way for ISPs to connect consumers to the internet, even here in NZ many ISPs use this. It basically puts a bunch of consumers behind the same NAT interface meaning that port-forwarding no longer works.

Re: We are now Solar Powered

#49

Post by xupybd »

halfdan wrote: post #45
xupybd wrote: post #43

It's really crappy that US ISPs block ports. I'm in little New Zealand and have a static IP that allows me to host anything I want.

Author is in rural Australia, but your point is still valid.

My bad. I tend to assume most of what I read here is from the US.

Re: We are now Solar Powered

#50

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

nostrademons wrote: post #44
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #33

Not directly related to solar-powered-servers, but rather power-involved-in-computing ... I have a solar powered van (not the engine, alas), and it has been amazing to understand how a day of my kind of computing (edit/compile/debug cycle with C++) uses more power than the 12VDC refridgerator in the van. The computer is a small custom built direct-to-12VDC miniITX with an i5 processor. The refridgerator literally has…

I've got a PowerWall and the Tesla app (which shows up-to-the-second readouts of your home's production & consumption), and it was shocking how little energy refrigerators and freezers use. Apparently it's because they're extremely well insulated; the compressor only needs to go on to adjust to changes in temperature, and if you don't open the door the temperature won't change much. There were a bunch of other surpri…

> If there's one thing you can do to save energy, it's probably to dry your clothes on a rack outside

Here in NM, you can take a load of athletic gear laundry outside to hang up and by the time you're done hanging it, the first items are already dry :) In winter, it takes about twice as long, indoors. So .. yeah.

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