LOW VOLTAGE COMPUTING John C. Osborne Do computers make sense in home power environments? YES! Computer use has high potential rewards and its cost is easily justifiable. While the effort is worth it, the methods aren't obvious. This is the first of a series of columns explaining why and how to run computers directly from low voltage DC. Lets begin... WHAT IS A COMPUTER? A computer is a universal information processing machine. It is mankind's most complex and open-ended tool. Software is the instruction list for re-arranging the computer "wiring", making it a different machine for different tasks. Software tells the computer what to do. The computer can be a calculator, word processor, database, PacMan game or whatever you want or invent. ARE YOU AN EXPERT? YES, you are an expert in your chosen field. Nothing counts for more. Example: Authors write better copy than word processing gurus. Sure, experts build computers, but civilization advances by standing on the shoulders of others. Layer your special knowledge on theirs. Do not be intimidated. House Keeping Gone are the days of keyboarding indecipherable codes, symbols and abbreviations. New programs called Graphical User Interfaces (GUI, pronounced goo-ee by nerds) let you point and click. Pictures represent your data. Menus display available choices. Complex, tedious details are made visible, easy, fast and fun. The manuals are built into the programs. Many people never use the printed manuals. Shrink-Wrapped This term means mass-produced, commercial software packages. Hundreds of man-years in development, mass marketing keeps software prices dirt cheap relative to their power. Very few people program these days because spreadsheet, data base and word processing programs already serve most these needs. Many programs allow data exchanges with other programs, further compounding the leverage a computer offers. WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? Three things: Business, activism and personal enrichment. The business uses are many, either in support or mission-critical roles (like developing software). Activism, individual or organized, is a high growth use. Computers are persuasive, relentless and make excellent work multipliers. The opposition exploits them and we should too. Personal enrichment through computers is an excellent use. You need not justify it to anyone but you. Its OK to engage in "recreational computing". Its OK to expand your mind. Many who start computing as a hobby find themselves using it in business soon after. Its even OK to play PacMan. WHAT CAN IT DO? Just about anything you can think of. Many successful systems serve just one obvious, high profile application. My personal vision of computerizing is a six-step process. While maximum return comes from integrating all six, you can take them in order, integrating the latest step with the others. Satisfying results exist in each step. I include examples from my personal experience. Collecting I consider this only the first stage of computer use, but it is good enough for many tasks. A computer tends to make you find, gather, filter, classify and evaluate information. It begs completeness, uniformity and discipline. After you have collected the data, you can sort it, search it, select it, analyze it and print it. Some examples: One business had double paid sales and use taxes but it was too much trouble to manually sort the data out. Numbers for all the transactions were put in the computer and sorted by item number and state. All duplicates ended up next to each other. Tax returns were filed and $90,000 hard cash was recovered. Another business needed to inform 30,000 customers of new customer numbers. The computer printed the info on post cards in zip code order (to lower postage). The job finished in four hours of printing. With today's printers, we could have pre-barcoded the zip and saved even more postage. Analyzing Step two is determining what the data means. Example: A game arcade company discovered they had run the business poorly for 10 years. The computer found correlations (relationships between variables) that let them predict the lifetime income of any game within 10% and when to sell it. Analysis made a $4 million annual difference. Visualizing Step three is to make the analysis obvious. Humans are visually oriented. Pictures persuade. Conclusions are obvious in graphs and charts that are hidden in straight text. Example: The game company executives argued with our findings until we graphically presented our information. We found additional valuable info, too. Designing Step four is not applicable to every situation, but think for a minute. One diabetes patient "designed" his diet to control blood sugar levels, reducing the medication and its side effects. CAD (Computer Aided Design) programs that produce blueprints are better known. Programs specific to the renewable energy industry specify PV systems and verify passive solar designs. Optimizing Step five leverages the understanding gained in previous steps. Example: A carpenter needed expensive window trim for a house. He typed all the different lengths into a computer and sorted them into standard lengths available. Result - no waste. A currently under rated form of optimization is Project Management (PM). More fallout from the space program, PM optimizes resources, including time and talent. Activities of hundreds of people performing thousands of tasks can be effectively coordinated. Example: The original project plans in one company had a specific deadline for completion. The task types, task durations, task dependencies, available people, vacations, etc. were run through the project scheduler. The computer projected a slip of 7 years past the deadline. Result: some drastic organizational changes were made. Producing Step six is for computers most closely tied to your products and services. These include desk top publishing, commercial art, technical drawing and program development. These new opportunities were made possible by computers only recently. You are looking at a fine example of Desk Top Publishing (DTP) as you read Home Power Magazine. The skill, experience and hard work by the Home Power Staff combined with computers make it practical. The staff takes text and graphics, edits for a consistent style and electronically lays it out into pages. DTP can do all types of documents: menus, greeting cards, flyers, posters, signs, newsletters, presentations, proposals, reports, price lists, spec sheets, business forms, pamphlets, books, manuals, and catalogs. Commercial art is often created directly on small computers. The AirCastle ad in this issue was created completely electronically. Yellow Pages publishers do all the ads this way. Technical drawings include architectural blueprints, mechanical drawings, printed circuit board artwork and assembly drawings. Program development is not new, but the applications could be. Write me if you need special software or could create some. I'll act as a clearing house to match the applications. Communicating Not really a step, but works well with all 6 steps. Properly configured, you have electronic mail capabilities. You type messages which are stored until the recipient logs in. Western Union lets you send telegrams, overnight mail, etc. anywhere in the world. Another use is accessing Computer Bulletin Board Services (CBBS). These also have electronic mail, but only between CBBS users. These are run by individuals or organizations (even our government). All it takes to set one up is a computer, phone line(s), phone connections (modems) and a System Operator (SYSOP). Call or write if you know of CBBSs dealing with alternative energy or you wish to start one. I'll publish the info. A computer with a special card installed makes a great phone answering machine. One brand routes calls to your phone, a FAX machine or takes messages. Since it responds to TouchTone signals, it interacts with callers. Great for answering common questions, taking orders, collecting data, etc. A FAX card in a computer allows paperless FAXing. Electronically created drawings and text are received with astounding clarity. All the fancy features of expensive FAX machines are available: stored numbers, delayed dialing, broadcasting to multiple locations, phone logs, etc. Your normal computer printer gives hardcopy output, while an optional scanner allows printed input. HOW DO YOU POWER IT? The obvious strategy of picking standard parts and plugging everything into an inverter has several problems. Its not quite as easy as it looks. Inverters Modern computer components use power supplies that convert the 120 vac produced by the inverter back into low voltage DC . This wastes power in needless conversion of low voltage DC into 120 vac and then back to low voltage DC. Since most computer equipment operates on low voltage DC anyway, using an inverter adds not only cost but inefficiency to the system. Consumption Mass marketed systems are designed for low purchase price, not low power consumption. Laser printers draw about 800 watts, far too much for most renewable energy systems. The computer itself may draw several hundred watts, the display monitor about 150 watts. To make computers practical in a power limited environment, the components must be carefully chosen for low consumption. It is possible to pick parts that use from 5 to 50 times less power with comparable performance. Costs You have heard it before, "It cost a little more, but its a better deal". This time, it really is true. With renewable energy, you have to buy the stuff that both makes and uses the power. Paying more up front for lower power consumption means paying less up front for power production. Getting power from solar panels cost about $10 per watt. This includes costs for panels, batteries, inverter, racks, wiring, etc. Of course, "your mileage may vary", so calculate your up front energy cost for use in your decision making process. Many people had no need for an inverter until they purchased a computer. With low voltage computers, you can save the $600-$1,500 cost of an inverter and a considerable amount for solar panels, batteries, etc. If you currently have excess power available, you may be less concerned. But what about possible future power demand increases? HOW DO YOU START? Start by backing up a little. You should think of what software you need first, then the hardware needed to run it. Its a variation on "form follows function". Start your research by reading computer magazines. Ask people for their recommendations, but be a bit cynical: folklore and personal preference are often presented as facts. Ask to try the computers and programs of interest. Several programs are available in evaluation copies to try at your leisure. How Do You Choose Software? It can be as simple as picking the same type as your friends or employer. There could be a real need to be compatible. Or, if your requirements are moderate, consider shareware or public domain software for it's variety and low (or no) cost. Computer bulletin boards often have free programs you can load over the phone lines. For mainstream applications, shrink- wrapped software has sophistication, size and feature richness. Now For The Hardware Two approaches now exist. Laptops are already low in power consumption and easy to convert. Because they are compact and light weight, they also have high prices, no or limited buss expansion, slower computing speed and tight storage capacity. A better method involves careful choosing of the lowest power consumption parts available. These parts may be modified to use still less power. Custom designed, high efficiency power supplies complete the package. A usable IBM PC compatible system with floppy disk, monitor and printer is possible for under $700. If ultra-low power consumption is desired, higher priced components are used in systems drawing under 6 watts. WRAPPING UP High performance computing is now practical in power limited situations. Since it enables more kinds of home based business and optimizes their effectiveness, it may even be essential. ACCESS John C. Osborne, AirCastle Enterprises, 15926 Northville Road, Plymouth, MI 48170 ¥ 313-348-7135.