Wind Energy

Windmills are used to harness the power of the wind to produce electricity. Usually windmills are erected using pre-made parts, on site. The basic fan type windmill consists of the tower, gearbox and fan.

Tower parts are usually made of galvanized steel using a roll of coiled sheet metal that is put on a de-spooling device to be fed to the production line.
The sheets are run under a straightener to remove twists and kinks and then cut to the right size and shape.
sometimes the pieces may be placed on a machine to roll and weld seams wherein its ends are passed under a crimping machine to be moved to the finishing station.

Holes are drilled in the metal parts of the finishing station at specific places, as per the windmill design.

These parts may be painted or coated before being fit into a windmill.
The gearbox of the windmill has various gears, rotors, wheels and axles found in it which are die cast and assembled by hand. These parts are placed in a weather resistant housing that is built to accommodate the gearbox parts and the attached wheel and tail assembly. The fan of the windmill is made of a metal rim that is attached with curved blades.

A hole is drilled in both ends of the rim which are connected with a small screw and clamp, to which the fan blades are attached.

The rim is then connected to a center axle, and attached with five pairs of evenly spaced spokes. The fan blades and tail of the windmill are cut from a sheet of metal and run through a machine to give them a curve.
They are then attached to the metal rim using small bolts and metal clamps so that they can be raised or lowered depending on the wind.

The site the windmill has to be placed has to be an area with a prevailing wind of at least 15 mph. the area has to be cleared of trees and other structures that block wind. Sometimes, a dirt mound or concrete base is build to raise the windmill so that it catches more wind.

When assembling the windmill, the main body parts are connected first, to be bolted on the ground and then raised vertically. Connecting rods are used to join other poles while clamps are bolted at joints for stability. Once the tower is raised, it is loosely bolted to the base wherein stay wires are strung from the ground to the tensioners and ground anchors.

When leveled, the bolts are tightened and its integrity tested.
Sometimes a ladder is built in the design for easy access and maintenance at the top. then the fan wheel, main shat and gearbox are attached where the gearbox is first clamped and bolted to the top of the tower.
Then the main shaft is inserted into the bottom of the gearbox wherein the fan and its axle are connected to the gearbox.

This is when the tail section is attached to the gearbox wherein the pump is hooked to the main shaft to make the windmill operational.

Solar Vehicle

Solar energy is one of the many renewable sources of energy that is used for fueling vehicles, running consumer products and for the efficient running of homes and business establishments. Solar power is harnessed with the help of solar cells and solar panels which are placed in the item that has to be powered.

The solar car is something that is envisioned to materialize in the future, with some countries already having solar cars racing across countries.
With this, it is proven that it is viable to indeed produce and manufacture solar power cars in bulk, in the near future so that everyone will soon own a solar power car.

Of course, once solar power cars are manufactured, it does not implicate that all other fuel sources for cars on highways will be removed. All that is done in solar power cars is the supplementation of traditional fuel with solar energy so that you save not only on your economy, but also save the environment in more ways than one every year.

The solar power cars that are used in races today run only on solar power, and thus look odd in appearance. This is because these cars are designed in such a way that they can collect maximum solar energy with which it is possible for the car to gain the required speed and desired efficiency.

The solar cells used in solar power cars are large, and usually cover the entire vehicle. However in case of commercial uses, solar cells are much smaller and designed so that the vehicle not only looks attractive, but is also efficient in its functioning. Solar cars can be used for short commutes in town as these cars can work only on solar energy.

The batteries found in the vehicle stores excess solar power so that this power can be used when solar power is not available on demand like on cloudy days and at nighttime. The engines found in these solar power cars are very much like the engines found in electric cars found today. In addition to this, the cars are lightweight, so that solar power can be used more efficiently.

At present, there are many types of solar power cars in the development stage today, which are also available for sale. However as these cars are in the developmental stage, the car is not available to the general public. With so many benefits found in solar power cars, its cost will not be much higher than the cost of the traditionally powered vehicles of today.

Another benefit of solar power cars is there is no hassle of stopping at gas stations for gas nor is there the need of getting worried of rising gasoline costs. With a solar power car, you save on the money that you would have otherwise have needed for buying fuel to run your car. In addition to this, with solar power cars you will be doing your bit in stopping global warming problems as there are no fuel emissions from solar power cars.

How Binary Code Works

Quick Binary Tutorial

People seem to freak out when they see binary. School math classes come flooding back and their mind freezes up. But there's no need for this at all. Don't think of binary as being difficult, just thing of it as different!

Binary terminology

Binary is a number system based on switches called bits. First, some terminology:

• Each bit is switch.
• Four bits is called a nibble.
• Eight bits is called a byte.

If the switch is on, the value of the switch is 1. If the switch off, the value of the switch is 0.

Why people find binary "different"

There are few things about binary numbers that make them different to the plain vanilla decimal (base10) numbers that surround us every day.

1. Binary only uses two of the digits that we are used to - 0 and 1
2. We need to learn to read them right to left (like decimal the smallest or least significant bit is on the right)

So, step 1 to binary success is to accept point 1 and just accept point 2!

Understanding binary

In these examples we will work with 8-bit binary - that is bytes. You can work with larger or smaller units but the byte is the most commonly used one.

OK, let's take a look at a byte of binary

01101101

OK, so the first thing to remember is to read the byte from right to left. Let's make things easier by creating a table:

Switch On = 1 Off = 0	0	1	1	0	1	1	0	1
Bit Position	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	1
Bit Value in decimal	128	64	32	16	8	4	2	1

Bit position is simply the position of the bit from the right - the bit furthest to the right is bit 1 and the bit on the left is number 8.

Decimal value of a bit is dependant on the position of the bit in the byte. The decimal value of the first bit is 1, the second 2 and so on. The eighth bit has a decimal value of 128. Converting a byte into decimal is simply adding up the decimal values of each on bit in the byte.

Highlight all the on bits and ignore the off bits:

Switch On = 1 Off = 0	0	1	1	0	1	1	0	1
Bit Position	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	1
Bit Value in decimal	128	64	32	16	8	4	2	1
01101101 =		64 +	32 +		8 +	4 +		1

Bit 8 = 0

Bit 7 = 64

Bit 6 = 32

Bit 5 = 0

Bit 4 = 8

Bit 3 = 4

Bit 2 = 0

Bit 1 = 1

http://www.mathsisfun.com/binary-decimal-hexadecimal-converter.html

Digital Logic - Signals and Gates

Introduction - Why Do You Want to Learn This Material?

In this lesson you're going to be introduced to Digital Logic. There are lots of reasons to learn digital logic. Here are some of those reasons.

• Digital logic is the foundation for digital computers. If you want to understand the innards of computers you need to know digital logic.
• Digital logic has relations to other kinds of logic including:
• Formal logic - as taught by many philosophy departments
• Fuzzy logic - a tool used to design control systems and many other systems.
• So, in learning digital logic you learn something that helps you elsewhere.
• For many students, learning digital logic is fun.

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What Are You Going to Learn?

There are at least two general areas you need to become familiar with.

• First, there's background you need to know - the basics of digital logic - things like zeros and ones (0s and 1s) and how you can represent signals as sequences of zeroes and ones. Eventually you will want to know how large arrays of zeroes and ones can be used in computer files to store information in pictures, documents, sounds and even movies and you'll want to learn about how information can be transmitted, between computers and digital signal sources.
• You will also need to know things about digital circuits - gates, flip-flops and memory elements and others - so that you can eventually design circuits to manipulate digital signals.

Here is a short list of the topics you will learn.

• Learn what logic signals look like
• Model logic signals
• Learn Boolean algebra for logic analysis
• Learn about gates that process logic signals
• Learn how to design some smaller logic circuits
• Learn about flip-flops and memory elements that store logic signals

Reference: http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/mastascu/elessonshtml/Logic/Logic1.html

Flip-Flops

There are some circuits that are not quite as straight forward as the gate circuits we have discussed in earlier lessons. However, you still need to learn about circuits that can store and remember information. They're the kind of circuits that are used in computers to store program information - RAM memory.

In this lesson we'll look at the background for those kinds of memory circuits. Our goal is the following.

Given a flip-flop circuit,

Determine how the circuit will behave for a sequence of inputs.
Be able to use a flip-flop to store a single bit.

Reference: http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/mastascu/elessonshtml/Logic/Logic4.html

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Why Do You Need To Know About Karnaugh Maps?

Karnaugh Maps are used for many small design problems. It's true that many larger designs are done using computer implementations of different algorithms. However designs with a small number of variables occur frequently in interface problems and that makes learning Karnaugh Maps worthwhile. In addition, if you study Karnaugh Maps you will gain a great deal of insight into digital logic circuits.

In this section we'll examine some Karnaugh Maps for three and four variables. As we use them be particularly tuned in to how they are really being used to simplify Boolean functions.

The goals for this lesson include the following.

Given a Boolean function described by a truth table or logic function,
Draw the Karnaugh Mapfor the function.
Use the information from a Karnaugh Map to determine the smallest sum-of-products function.