Author: bartosz.sroka

April 25, 2025 Circular Economy, Gardening, Prepping, Twisted Plot Post a Comment

Project: Twisted Plot Gardening [Module 1: Living Quarters]

I’m an outdoors man. I was spending a good portion of my free time hiking, sleeping in tents or hammocks. But with time, it was just harder and harder to find time, to spend it like that. Last year, my wife gave me a present – a gardening plot! What a great gift! Now, I have my “living lab”. It’s a place where I can put all my crazy ideas on sustainability, vertical farming and prepping. I explore off-grid and renewable energy sources, etc. 0.1 acre (600sqm) of gardening paradise!

Plan is to make it work in those few phases/modules/segments:

Module 1: Living quarters

Module 2: Water and waste management

Module 3: Veggies and Flowers

Module 4: Lighting and Smartness

Module 1: Living quarters

Any kind of solid-wall housing is CRAZY expensive, it seems ridiculous to put 20,000 EUR in a small cabin. Of course, it provides shelter, security, and storage space. However, it seems excessive as one of the first costs. It’s still for “gardening”, not “cabining”!

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March 15, 2025 Energy Management, IoT, Tech Post a Comment

Peacock feather strategy for Energy management

If you want to know more about Virtual Power Plants — related to this topic — please read: [How Smart Homes Are Changing How We Distribute Energy].

Why Are We Even Talking About This?
The growing demand for electrical energy (EE) is a more significant problem than one might think. The world is not like SimCity 3000; building new infrastructure is extremely challenging. Constructing a nuclear power plant takes more than 10 years on average (including planning and construction). Extending power grid lines can take 3–5 years, assuming the distances are not too great. On top of that, all this work involves tremendous costs, and ultimately you — the energy user — end up bearing these expenses, either through taxes, energy bills, or more likely both.

AI generated construction site, because is too expensive to actually do it.
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February 15, 2025 Energy Management, IoT, Tech Post a Comment

The Role of Smart Homes in Virtual Power Plant Systems

As energy grids evolve to accommodate growing demand and renewable energy integration, Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) are emerging as an innovative solution to enhance grid stability and efficiency. Central to the success of VPPs is the incorporation of smart home technologies, which transform individual households into active participants in energy management. By leveraging distributed energy resources (DERs) and intelligent devices, smart homes can contribute significantly to the operation of VPPs, offering benefits for both consumers and utilities, increasing the safety of both grid and enduser.

Future. Colorized. Exaggerated.
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December 1, 2024 IoT, Tech 1 Comment

DSP-700GB power supply and how to make it work

DSP-700GB is an affordable alternative to new, fancy power supplies that would cost around 100 EUR for same current rating. Which is staggering 56A at 12VDC. As it will not just output 12V on its pads, it needs some additional treatment.

Top side of DSP-700GB pads

Connect pad 4 and 7 to GND (left or right doesn’t matter), that will make it “Always on”, it will always provide 12VDC between pads GND and +12V.