For a couple years now, I have been looking at home weather stations to measure wind speed and direction along with the other usual stuff - indoor and outdoor temparature, humidity and rainfall. I went with a WMR968 Professional Weather Station from Oregon Scientific. It uses solar to power wireless transmitters to send the data from instruments to the display. It was a bear to install, taking 6-8 hours to get the anemometer high enough and away from obstructions. The directions were so bad, I thought it would never work, but it does and fairly reliably - for now.
But I wished I had waited for the anemometer from Fascinating Electronics. It’s a homemade but cleverly fashioned together with PVC pipe. The anemometer (weather vane and cup rotor) is $100. Throw in another $25 for the temparature/humidity sensor and you all but the rain guage you get in the WMR968 which goes for $250 (I wanted Davis Vantage Pro 2, but could not justify the $500+ cost). To be fair, Fascinating’s piecemeal approach isn’t for everyone. It does not come with an electronic display so you have to build or acquire your own or use a calibration chart to translate pulses from the anemometer in MPH. But that could be a fun project.
By experimenting with the photovoltaic reaction in solar cells, researchers at MIT have made a breakthrough in energy efficiency that significantly pushes the boundaries of current commercial cells on the market.
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A quick look into the merger of two powerhouse 3D printing OEMs and the new leader in rapid prototyping solutions, Stratasys. The industrial revolution is now led by 3D printing and engineers are given the opportunity to fully maximize their design capabilities, reduce their time-to-market and functionally test prototypes cheaper, faster and easier. Bruce Bradshaw, Director of Marketing in North America, will explore the large product offering and variety of materials that will help CAD designers articulate their product design with actual, physical prototypes. This broadcast will dive deep into technical information including application specific stories from real world customers and their experiences with 3D printing. 3D Printing is
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