Kibbles & Bytes Blog

Several articles ago, I believe I made mention of how generators and alternators work. I think it was in an article about induction motors and electric motors in general. Spinning generators are certainly common and they are by far the most common way we get our household power. Hydro, nuclear, coal, natural gas, geothermal, tidal, wind…basically any type of power generation that involves something moving…they all use generators. In the case of things like nuclear, coal, natural gas, and geothermal, the moving medium is steam created by heating regular water.

If you understand generators, that’s all there is to most power generation. Of course with nuclear, you might want to understand the nuclear fission process, but that’s separate from the power generation itself. One method of power generation that’s become increasingly common and promoted these days is solar, specifically photovoltaic. It’s important to distinguish photovoltaic power from solar power generally because you can actually use mirrors to concentrate sunlight to generate steam to spin a conventional generator. Photovoltaic generation is solid state, meaning that it has no moving parts anywhere in the process.

Photovoltaic (or solar) power cells are actually quite complicated, combining structural design, chemistry, electromagnetism, and physics. In simple terms, a solar power cell absorbs photons in semiconducting materials. Electrons in these materials are energized enough so that they can move. The structure and materials of the cell constricts how the electrons can move. Because we want to generate useable power, we want the electrons to all move in the same direction so that they can be pushed through whatever circuitry we’re trying to power. The actual nitty gritty science of the semiconducting materials and structure is ??very?? complicated.

Solar cells vary widely in their performance and efficiency. This is because not all photons are equal. While a given area of sunlight has in it some amount of energy, only some percentage of the photons will properly interact with the silicon semiconductor. Many of the photons that hit a solar cell will have too much energy and will simply be converted to heat. This is exactly the same kind of heat you feel on your skin if you lay in the sun.

Metal-semiconductor contacts are imprinted onto both sides of the solar cell to funnel the moving electrons into external wires and on to external loads. After the electrons pass through the external loads, they come back to the solar cell and fill in the gap left by other electrons that have moved. If it’s not clear by now, solar cells can only generate direct current power. In grid-tie solar applications, the DC from the solar array must be inverted to grid-level AC power. This is definitely the biggest difference between photovoltaic power and almost all other forms of electricity generation.

To some people it may seem counterintuitive, but solar cells work best in bright, cool conditions. If a cell heats too much, its output will be reduced. When a solar panel is rated, they rate it at a nominal 25 degrees celsius. For each degree of temperature increase, every panel will have a known loss of efficiency. To grossly oversimplify it, a cold electron at rest will have a much greater change in energy state when it’s knocked free than a hot electron already in motion. Therefore a hot panel will produce a lower voltage and thus, less power. On cold winter days, my solar panel at home increases its voltage so much that the controller can use the extra voltage to create more charging current. So my panel which is rated for a short-circuit current of 2.78 amps can actually deliver a charging current to my battery of over 4 amps (in ideal conditions).

I had to simplify this topic considerably because there’s just no way I could go into p/n-type doped silicon and how semiconductors work in a short article. I highly recommend reading up on it though because it is a fascinating combination of electromagnetism and chemistry. Semiconductors have a lot of uses and are very interesting. Maybe I can condense some of it into a future article.

Home automation is a big topic right now. The technology has been out for several years now, but for many users as well as manufactures it’s just now starting to really take off. There seems to be an almost endless list of options popping up and they range from simple DIY installations to more complex professional installations. I’ve talked to many users in the last few weeks who want to begin using some home automation products but don’t know where to start so I thought I’d start to share some of the things I’m doing in my own home. I have several products running now, but the first place I started was with simple smart outlets and installing a few apps on my phone.

Taking advantage of home automation doesn’t have to be complicated and you can do it in baby steps. In my own house I started by adding some smart outlets from Incipio. The “**Incipio CommandKit Smart Outlet with Metering**”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/88015/incipio-commandkit-smart-outlet-with-metering was very simple to set up and took me just 5-10 minutes to pair it to my phone via their free “**app.**”:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/incipio-commandkit/id1049393966?mt=8 Now from my phone I can control multiple devices within my home via this app and I can see the amount of power those items are using. Because the smart outlets work off your home wifi, you can easily move them around the house and connect them to different products around your house. I’ve been astounded with the difference in power consumption with some lights around my house. We all know LED products use less power, but it’s remarkable to see first hand just how much of a difference there is! Thanks to my smart outlets I’ve discovered little things like the tiny lightbulb in my bedroom lamp used almost as much power as TV, cable box and speakers combined. I quickly changed out that bulb to an LED. Before getting these outlets it never crossed my mind to change bulbs in my smaller lamps.

Through my phone I can now turn devices on and off, see how much power they are using and program when specific devices might need to turn on or off. I can also do fun things like like use Siri (you do need to set up HomeKit for this) to turn lights on when you come into a room and don’t want to open the app. As you get more comfortable with basic home automation tools like outlets, you can expand to light bulbs, speaker systems and even start replacing physical wall switches. My one piece of advice to someone starting off with home automation is pick a brand of product lines and compatibility, ensuring the products you are buying are compatible with HomeKit. Not all home automation products work with HomeKit so you want to pay attention to what you’re buying. Little details like this can really reduce headaches and detract from the value and fun of these devices!

Many Mac users don’t realize just how customizable their Macs are, and a part of the Mac interface that’s simultaneously among the most useful and the most overlooked is the toolbar that appears in every Finder window.

By default, the toolbar contains buttons for navigating back and forth, changing the view, arranging the files in the window, performing a variety of actions, sharing the selected file, working with tags, and searching. There’s nothing wrong with these controls, and you may even use them regularly.

But those defaults are just the tip of the iceberg. Choose View > Customize Toolbar and a dialog appears with a slew of additional controls that you can drag to the toolbar, after which they appear in every Finder window. None of these controls are unique–they’re all available from Finder menus and via keyboard shortcuts–but it’s often easier to click a button that’s front and center in a Finder window rather than hunting through menus or trying to remember a key combo.

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The most useful toolbar controls include:

*Arrange:* The choices in this menu let you group files and folders by different criteria, such as file kind, what app owns each file, or the date each file was modified. It’s great when you’re working in a folder with a lot of similar files.

*Action:* This menu duplicates many of the options in the Finder’s File menu but can be easier to access.
Space/Flexible Space: Drag Space to the toolbar to separate controls by a fixed amount so you can group related items. Flexible Space works similarly, except it can expand or contract to match the window width.

*New Folder: *Click it and you get a new folder. Handy, if unsurprising.

*Delete:* Equally unsurprising is the Delete button, which moves selected files and folders to the Trash when you click it.

*Search:* Enter some text here to search for it within your files (or choose the “Name matches” item that pops down from the Search field to search for it in just filenames). You can set the default search to be the entire Mac or just the current folder in Finder > Preferences > Advanced.

*Share:* When you want to share a file with someone else, look here for sharing extensions for AirDrop, Mail, Messages, and more. You can also import files into some apps, like Notes, using the Share menu.

*Edit/Add Tags:* If you rely on Finder tags to group and find related files, this menu makes it easy to add and edit tags for selected files and folders.

Don’t miss the Show pop-up menu, which lets you customize your toolbar to show icons with names, just icons, or only text.

What if you want to get rid of a toolbar button? Just drag it off the toolbar while the Customize Toolbar dialog is open. But that’s not all!

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While the Customize Toolbar dialog is open, you can drag buttons around on the toolbar to rearrange them. Even better, you can drag any app, document, or folder into the toolbar (from another Finder window) to add it. It’s a great place to put that spreadsheet you open every day or the utility app you use to upload a weekly report. You can even drop a file on an app in the toolbar to open the document in that app.

To modify the toolbar quickly without opening the Customize Toolbar dialog, just hold down the Command key. With that key down, you can move items around on the toolbar, drag unnecessary items off, and drag new files on.

No matter what you do on your Mac, taking a few minutes to customize the toolbar with controls you’ll use and your primary apps and documents will make using the Mac faster and easier every day. Give it a try!

_Dear Friends,_

I thought I’d be leaving Kibbles to Emily this week but since my plane is leaving late, here I am. I am heading to Las Vegas for the annual Consumer Electronics Show. While you will see all manner of electronics products at the show from cars to TVs to amazing car stereos, I will be looking for upcoming trends and oddball gear. I will specifically, also, be looking for new Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C gear and home automation innovations.

I remember about 5-years ago when the first of the drones were being shown. It was just a couple booths and drones were not that sophisticated. Last year there was a huge drone section with highly choreographed drone dancing and drones of all sizes. Now, I hear that drones were one of the most popular Christmas gifts this year. I wonder what will be that next amazing tech. I think we will see a lot of VR and AI stuff with some already announcing competitors to Amazon’s Echo line of products.

I am very pleased to announce that we have a new finance manager at Small Dog Electronics. Kianna Bromley has joined us and we are all very happy to have her on the Small Dog team!

This week’s Kibbles & Bytes exclusive is a Chill Pill six-pack. “Get three black, and three white Chill Pill speakers for only $29.99!”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002527/kibbles-bytes-exclusive-is-a-chill-pill-six-pack? **This is a 50% savings!**