Maker Faire Detroit!

Practically everyone was at Maker Faire this weekend, and here's the footage to prove it!. I captured over 30 hours of video with lemon battery. It's fun to watch it all fly by in about 5 minutes, and I compressed the overnight portion down from 2 minutes to about 15 seconds.

So many people came up to and interacted with the camera, and it was great to see people use it in ways I hadn't expected. Groups of kids had fun standing in front of the camera then running over to my computer to catch their picture before the next one was taken. At least two people that I know about visited the website on their phone and after realizing they were "on TV", called up a family member to point them to the website and wave hello.

This was a very successful test of the system, and proved that the iPhone software is much more reliable when used just with WiFi, and not on the 3G data network. It also proved that things don't dissapear as easily in Dearborn, since I left the whole rig to record overnight and made no effort to secure the phone or other electronics - except for Maker Faire security of course. Maybe we can get them to hang out on Plymouth for a few months...

Maker faire setup

There's two points of good news in this post - I have my hands on a shiny new solar panel AND I have a booth in Maker Faire Detroit this weekend to show those coasters what I can do with lemon battery!

I Spent a few hours at the studio tonight wiring things up, charging the BEAST, and fabricating a mounting bracket for the new 40w panel. Everything, including a new and more visible camera mount, is ready to bring to Dearborn and stoart knocking the time-lapse pants off of anyone. If you're in town, drop by the Henry Ford museum saturday or Sunday to see this, and many other great projects!

Prepping for BIBP

In preparation for the big inch block party, I've been working on the birdhouse camera case. The final model will use a 10ft pole, not the 3 foot scrap I've been using fir mockup purposes. Look for the lemon battery camera this weekend at the www.biginchblockparty.com

If a solar panel falls in a vacant lot...

We unfortunately get to ponder the age old question, "If a solar panel falls in a vacant lot on the East side of Detroit, and nobody was there to record a timelapse of it, does the world know it happened?"

Yesterday, as Jerry was visiting Plymouth to start a game of chess, he stumbled upon the crime scene - two clean cuts and one missing solar panel. In the whole scheme of lemon battery, this is just a little spilt lemon juice, and we must press onward. The good news is that ONLY the panel and pole were vandalized. The battery and camera hadn't made their way to the property yet, and both of those things are much more valuable (monetarily) than what was destroyed.

Stay tuned for the solar panel phoenix, rising from the grasses of Plymouth to find its place in the sun.

Panel up!

Yesterday, we performed the first of 3 lemonbattery installation missions at Plymouth. Jerry is the keeper of the timelapse video this time around, and I'll be sure to post that shortly. A squirrel has been added for scale.

NYC to Detroit

In yet another simple test of Lemon Battery software, we recorded our drive from Brooklyn to Detroit. The 10 hour drive is compressed into about 2 minutes worth of video (1 photo/10 seconds at 30fps). We didn't really plan this one out, and had nothing even close to tripod on hand. about 1/2 way though the drive we had the epiphany of using sock/shoe stabilization technology, and the view gets remarkably better as a result, but will still periodically nod off towards the ground before being hoisted back into position. Enjoy the show!

The first voluntary Lemon Battery delay

In a weird twist, the iPhone 4 is now officially delaying the launch of the Plymouth lemon battery. Why? Because AT&T will NOT let you put a data only package on an old iPhone. No way, won't do it, cant even think about it. The only option is to add a line, and sign a 2 year contract for that line. Lemon battery currently depends on an iPhone to do all the technical work of uploading photos to an FTP server over a 3g connection, so, in the spirit of efficiency we have to wait the 2 weeks until that contract also brings with it an iPhone 4. I will NOT be using an iPhone 4 for lemon battery, but if I have to lock my self into AT&T even deeper, It would be dumb not to have something to show for it. I hope everyone understands!

All the pieces

Between being out of town, having freelance work, buying a charging controller that was dead on arrival and having a whole lot of rain in Detroit, you could say that this test was a long time coming.

The good news is that our battery is working fine, our panel makes power where there had only been sunlight before, and our new charging controller is rated to survive just about anything you could throw at it.

In these photos, you can see a working setup ready to be installed, and ready to start broadcasting from Loveland.

Alan Languirand
www.alanlanguirand.com
projectlemonbattery.com

Sent from my iPhone

Battery Unboxing

ETA: Any time now

So it happened - The day after Jerry started begging for batteries, a local gentledude by the name of Phillip Colley heeded the call and ordered the battery on our behalf! Thanks Phillip!  

Any other thank you's for this generous maneuver can be rendered in the forms of phone calls, emails, or visits to Phillips restaurant, Slow's. The behemoth battery is on it's way to Detroit, and Lemon Battery is about to go online for what we hope will be forever.