71–80 of 141 posts
Is there a name for this effect in an abstract sense? I see it pop up a lot where the gains from scaling are super-linear to the scale itself. Or is it just called "economies of scale".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder how much the efficiency loss from a laptop car charger would compare to just using something like a NUC -- IIRC some of their models have really wide input voltage ranges (12v-20v or something like that, depends on the model). The laptop is really just bringing a battery, compared to a NUC, for this application, and they are going panel->regulator->battery->converter anyway so the laptop battery seems redund…
Odroid H1/H2 iirc can run from like 10-22VDC, the issue is finding a solar panel that has an open circuit voltage less than 22V. I found a buck-boost that works with my old laptop and a "car charger" with my admittedly oddball solar panels, so this is possibly, but takes time shopping and reading specifications.
Rather than inverting 12V DC to 240V AC and back, you could skip a step and use a laptop car charger, converting 12V DC straight to ~20V DC.
You could also use a desktop with one of these ATX power supplies that runs on 12VDC instead of 120/240VAC: https://www.cartft.com/catalog/il/2302
Adding the obligatory "what if M1" comment. Anandtech tested power draw of an M1 Mac Mini and found 4.2W at idle, 26.5W for the average multithreaded workload. 1/3rd idle power and the same power draw while running multithreaded benchmarks compared to the laptop serving a single client. Would be interesting to compare. https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-teste...
Technically, it should be "200 watts". The losses happen due to all the inversion and conversion (I think... right?)
TLDR (although it's quite short), he got 21W. The largest factor is the day-cycle. He gets 3 hours equivalent of Sun light a day. I really expected Australia to be more sunny than that.
It also makes roof top solar a bit of a joke.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder how much the efficiency loss from a laptop car charger would compare to just using something like a NUC -- IIRC some of their models have really wide input voltage ranges (12v-20v or something like that, depends on the model). The laptop is really just bringing a battery, compared to a NUC, for this application, and they are going panel->regulator->battery->converter anyway so the laptop battery seems redund…
Odroid H1/H2 iirc can run from like 10-22VDC, the issue is finding a solar panel that has an open circuit voltage less than 22V. I found a buck-boost that works with my old laptop and a "car charger" with my admittedly oddball solar panels, so this is possibly, but takes time shopping and reading specifications.
Panel -> regulator -> battery -> inverter -> laptop
So, the voltage of the panel shouldn't really matter too much, I think (I mean, you size the regulator input range as appropriate). OTOH, solar panels are a little magical from my point of view, so maybe that regulator ought to be replaced by some solarpanel specific thing, which might be more constricting.
Adding the obligatory "what if M1" comment. Anandtech tested power draw of an M1 Mac Mini and found 4.2W at idle, 26.5W for the average multithreaded workload. 1/3rd idle power and the same power draw while running multithreaded benchmarks compared to the laptop serving a single client. Would be interesting to compare. https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-teste...
I was recently traveling with a M1 MacBook, and had a 20W solar panel + a 24Ah power bank for charging. Worked like a treat for coding.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can use nvidia-prime to run on intel only right?
> run on intel only How does that work on a Ryzen laptop?
Can someone explain this part of his equation? What’s he doing with 240v? Or maybe he meant 24v for charging the laptop?