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Every year divisible by four with remainder one, adventurous geeks hold an outdoor festival in the Netherlands. This year, about 6000 people are expected to attend a long weekend.
Among them will be a group of experimenters who will be testing a 42 volt direct current grid. Specifically, a cluster of tents within the festival will receive approximately 50 × 4 Amperé supplies and 8 × 16 Amperé supplies. Hopefully, this will be run by solar power but there will also be a backup generator. Switching a high load of direct current is more complicated than alternating current and losses around the example MOSFET circuit are expected to be less than 0.2W per junction. Although people are expected to bring together previously untested circuitry, it is hoped that pieces of the project will inspire multiple direct current grids in more permanent locations.
Hopefully, electrocution or voltage drop doesn't halt electrical distribution at the festival.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Unixnut on Sunday July 02 2017, @09:47AM (2 children)
> I just am curious why they opted going for humor instead of following a standard where parts are readily available and where setup is a painfree standard since at least a few decades ago.
Because it is a gimmick, done for PR purposes more than any other reason. I don't see the point of it myself beyond attention seeking. We know you can use DC grids (indeed HVDC lines exist in quite a few places where it has benefits over AC), we know AC is the most cost effective (at the moment) method of long distance transport of energy. We also have entire datacentres running off DC at 48V, with only big, mains AC-DC converters at the transition point (I've worked in such places myself, and of course Google was famous for doing it).
And running DC off local generation is also done many times before, by anyone who is serious about camping, or lives off grid, or even truckers, who usually have all sorts of things running on their own APU (usually at 24, sometimes 48 volts).
So... there is absolutely nothing revolutionary, or even new, about what these people are doing, except they are running a non standard voltage, and seem to be keen to puff themselves up for attention.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Sunday July 02 2017, @05:01PM
The only reason I can think of for that number: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/42-volt_electrical_system [wikipedia.org]
But everyone else uses some multiple of the 12V number, derived from the 12V lead acid automotive battery where the cell voltage is roughly 2V per cell. 48V in telecom and mission critical communications equipment, 24V in industrial automation and European heavy duty trucks, 12V in automotive and many others. Solar battery systems use most of those 12V multiples voltages up to 60V.
It would be easier to pick a more common voltage like 24 or 48 as you can more easily find off the shelf power supplies, DC-DC converters, and devices that run on those voltages.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday July 02 2017, @11:15PM
Its interesting that we're days/weeks away from ham radio field day which has a great pile of PR gimmick, mostly exists to camp drink beer and play with radios, and without any fanfare the hams set up greta thundering weird 12 volt DC networks at their camp.
Tons of standardized gear and techniques and frankly its boring and the DC bus is not the most exciting part of ham radio field day.
Part of what killed the great conversion to 42V car batteries a decade or two ago is cheap power supply technology. My wife's prius has multiple DC bus, the legacy 12V for the radio and not a heck of a lot else, some weird voltage for the electric air conditioner (not belt driven) and the main DC bank. Its entirely possible there will never, ever, be a standard DC bus for cars beyond maybe 12V at the radio port and 5V for USB charging because switching power supplies are just too cheap. Your alternator runs at highest efficiency at 90V, well let it. Your LED headlights run best at 3.2 volts? Cool dude, run then at 3.2 volts. Your engine computer CPU runs as 0.9V cmos or WTF? Cool, run at that.