This is the second part and update on the OWL. For the first part visit: Click Here
I had prepared a test bed of two different types of plants on my terrace garden. One got the regular treatment that any potted plant gets and the other received periodic doses of the OWL's output. Diluted doses were poured once is two weeks. Here are the astonishing results:
IMPORTANT: These are some of my views and research findings. Time may prove them right or wrong. Some of it may seem very unorthodox. I put it up here so that it may be useful for some and interesting to others and may some day benefit mankind.
Life energy as I see it:
Life energy I believe is a charge much like energy in a battery. The very essence of our body and every other living organism is electric in nature. This is the same reason that most of the equipment used in modern medicine to diagnose and treat us rely on electric charge of our body. ECG, EEG, pace makers and physio therapy equipment are examples from a huge list.
Homeostasis as we know is the body's nature to stabilize itself to an optimum state. When there is a depletion of energy in the body, it tries to balance itself by taking energy from the store, in our case mostly 'fat' cells. Every living organism has its means of storing excess energy for emergencies and day today activities. The depleted storage is topped up processing the food we eat. The bigger life forms much like the humans and other animals are multicellular where as there are microscopic ones that are unicellular.
What ever the size of the organism from a single cell to a collection of cells most of the communication and energy transfer happens as an electric charge. Our entire nervous system works on electric charge being transmitted across the system. It is a bio chemical reaction that produces the energy and then transmits and uses it. So much like a generator and battery, the living being has the ability to produce and store energy that can be converted to the electric potential as and when required and in the required quantity.
Let us consider homeostasis again. When there is a change in the system, the system tries to neutralize the change and bring it to say, a base state ,a state of comfort so to speak. Here is the interesting part, this is what happens in a battery too. A healthy battery much like the human body, likes to maintain its healthy state.
Looking at the battery from the human bodies point of view:
I found it interesting to look at it this way. The battery like the human body discharges its energy to do useful work.When there is a drop in energy and the battery uses its stored energy to meet the demand. When it gets depleted, it takes external charge to replenish itself much like the food we eat.
So if there is a means of taping the energy stored in a living organism and then to give it enough energy to replenish itself as and when required, we have a wonderful organic system supplying us electric power......
FEEL FREE TO USE THIS DESIGN AND PROCEDURE FOR NON COMMERCIAL APPLICATION
I have christened the device the OWL.
Kitchen waste disposal is often a problem. There are methods of making compost out of the organic waste which could become a really messy affair and requires substantial amount of space. This is of course an excellent method of producing organic fertilizer but is not always ideal for small spaces. So I thought I would develop something that could be used in urban homes without the mess and the smell.
Caution: do not add citrus waste into the liquidator [ lemon, orange etc..]
If you want to skip the literature and head straight for the construction head for the title : Construction
The evolution of the idea:
I have an aquaponic system [ growing fish in tanks and pumping the water into vegetable growing beds above and draining it back into the fish tank ] where I grow my vegetables. About a year ago I had introduced an organic waste digestion system into this. This was a rather simple technique. One of the growing bed's had a container with holes drilled at the bottom. The container had gravel to about 1.5 inch, covering the height of the hole ; the height of the container was 1 ft. Every day the lid was opened and kitchen waste was dumped into this container. The aquaponic system is an ebb and flow system which means that the growing bed fills with water from the fish farm and is flushed out according to a pre-programmed cycle. So each time this happens the container fills with water and flushes out filtering the liquid through the gravel. I noticed amazing improvement in the growth rate of vegetables and a substantial improvement in output and taste.
In an aquaponic system bacteria likeNitrosomonas and Nitrobacter convert the ammonia produced by the fish into useful nitrate through the nitrogen cycle, which is manure for the plants. These bacteria develop in the growing media naturally over a period of six months to one year.
I noticed that the rate of decomposition in my test container was so rapid that even after a period of six months the container was only 3/4 full and stayed that way. When organic waste decays a percentage of ammonia is also produced, the quantity is more in anaerobic systems. So I reckoned there were two primary groups of bacteria , one the bacteria responsible for the nitrogen cycle [ producing nitrates in the container ] and the other group, similar to the ones in bio-gas units, was responsible for the decomposition of the solid mass into fluid. The primary difference here was that the bio-gas was an anaerobic where as here it is mostly aerobic.
Taking it out of the Aquaponic System:
I thought it would be good if I could replicate the same outside the system as a stand alone device. Since the system was going well in the aquaponic medium it was a safe bet to assume that the bacterial action has stabilised/matured to a degree of perfection. So I prepared a container outside the system, this time a regular container without holes at the bottom. I then added vegetable waste from the kitchen into the container and then the key ingredient, a portion of the content from the container placed in the aquaponic system. I went for a 50/50 propotion of kitchen waste to the aquaponic container mass. More waste was added on a daily basis and to my delight the container was not filling up beyond a certain level. I noticed a substantial amount of liquid form at the bottom of the container. So I strained a little out, leaving some , making sure not to dry the container. The strained liquid was then used on a test batch of potted plants. I had five pots that was observed with and without the liquid treatment. Over a period of two weeks the pots with the liquid treatment showed rapid growth and darker , bigger green leaves.
Delighted with the results I set out to construct the OWL - Organic Waste Liquidator.
Construction:
These are the key points that I considered :
A moderately sized container with a lid.
A tap that can be fixed near the base of the container.
Gravel to act as a filter.
Maintaining safe liquid level after filtering out the liquid.
It is important not to drain out the entire liquid from the chamber as it contains the bacteria that aids the process. So the tap is fixed at a height of 2 inches from the base.
Select a contained based on your requirement. For a family of four a container of 15 inch height and 12 inch diameter would suffice.
Use a drill to drill a hole as per your taps diameter.
The hole should be about 2 inches above the base of the container.
Use an appropriate coupling to fasten the tap.
Wait for the glue to dry. Check for leaks by pouring 8 inches of water.
Clean the container for dust, dry it and paint it. I used a spray can of matte black.
An old U bend was used to prevent liquid from entering directly into the tap after filtration through the gravel.
The U is positioned and not fixed. It can be removed for future cleaning if the need arises.
Cleaned and washed gravel is added to a height of 3.5 inches. This acts as a filter medium and also aids undisturbed bacterial growth.
Construct a stand to your required height or get a ready-made one.
Here is the construction plan with dimensions.
Hope you find this useful. Feel free to share it with your friends for free non commercial use. I hold the rights to the design so do not under any circumstance use it for commercial purposes.
Click the link for the test results in PART 2 : Click Here
Everything is going green these days. I thought it might be a good idea to convert a regular radio controlled car into a solar powered car. This would mean hours of fun without the need to change the batteries and would also make a good school science project. Here is what you will need:
A radio controlled car
Appropriate Solar Panel
One diode
Soldering Iron
Screw driver
Wires for connection
The car:
You can choose any radio controlled car. It would however be a good to idea to check the available solar panel first. I chose a car that uses 4x1.5V AA batteries. This would add up to 6V.
The Solar Panel:
Since the car requires 6V I bought a small 6 volt panel from eBay.
The Project:
The first part involves taking the car apart. Most probably you would find the appropriate screws right below the car. The one I bought had four screws. Once these were unscrewed the top part could be easily taken off revealing the electronic circuit.
You will find two wires [ mostly red and black] coming out of the battery box. The red is the positive and the black is the negative wire. These are the two points that we will connect our solar line to. The car that I used had head lights which went on when the car moved. This was directly connected across the motor that drove the wheels. To save power I disconnected the head lights.
Some radio controlled cars come with rechargeable batteries that are not AA or AAA but the connection would still remain the same. Our aim is to connect the output of the solar panel to the battery terminals.
The under carriage of the car houses the battery box , open it and replace the AA batteries with rechargeable AA batteries. Your car might come with non-rechargeable batteries like mine did. Make sure that you have rechargeable batteries in the box or this project wont work. I took off the seats and the wind shield to facilitate the fixing of the panel there. A piece of acrylic was cut out to cover the empty space and prevent dust and moister from directly falling on to the circuit below.
Cut two pieces of wire, red [+] and blue [-] and the same is soldered on to the + and - terminals of the panel. At the far end of the red [positive] wire the diode is soldered. The diode has a silver ring to denote the negative side of the diode and the other side is positive. The positive side of the diode is soldered on to the positive wire coming from the panel.
The acrylic piece has screw holes drilled at the exact places where the seat fixture had screws. So the same screws were used to securely fasten the acrylic panel on to the car body. I then used rubber based glue to attach the panel to the body of the car.
Make sure that that there are no batteries in the battery box while you do the following. The bare end of the red wire with the diode [ silver ring end] is soldered to the positive terminal of the battery box and the blue wire to the negative side. It would be good to recheck the connection before popping the batteries back in.
Explanation for the School Science Project:
A photo voltaic cell converts the light from the sun into electricity. The panel mounted on the car produces electricity that charges the on board battery bank. The diode is a component that lets current flow only in one direction. When the panel is not producing current there is a possibly for the power from the battery to drain out into the panel. The diode is kept to prevent the reverse flow of current from the battery into the panel. We could say that this is a very simple charge controller. In larger electric cars that are seen on the street, a more sophisticated charge controller is used to control the charging of the battery in the car. The components in any solar car would be the, solar panel > charge controller > battery. The rest of the circuitry would control the motor drive. This same technology one scaled up can be used to build bigger solar powered cars.
