Is there news? Solar Powered Website leaves it to the sun.
Regular visitors of the popular Lowtechmagazine.com website will face a new challenge; will the sun shine strong enough to keep the webserver up and provide them with the content they are looking for? When I checked this morning the batteries of the website server had only 7% left! Luckily the weather forecast is okay for the Barcelona area (where the webserver is located) and can the batteries have a recharge.
That uncertainty is all part of the objective of this website, to investigate and publish on the best usage of existing technologies. To put themselves to the test, Kris De Decker, owner of lowtechmagazine, and the group of people maintaining the website, decide to make a bold step and go for 100% solar powered.
Around a Olimex Olinuxino A20 Lime 2 board they build a solar panel, batteries and regulators and fine-tuned the site for minimal power consumption. The pictures they use are dithered to make them as small as possible and the Google Ad services (also consuming energy) are left behind and replaced with a donating scheme. The decision for the Olimex board was based on the low power consumption and the AXP209 power management chip. All the considerations and decision on the hardware, software and all technology that comes with it are available at https://homebrewserver.club/low-tech-website-howto.html#server.
If you follow the link you will find a 2018 eeNews video with Kris De Decker https://www.eenewsembedded.com/content/low-tech-or-high-tech-eenews-2018-interview-kris-de-decker
How it is done: https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/09/how-to-build-a-lowtech-website.html
The technical specifications can be found here: https://homebrewserver.club/low-tech-website-howto.html#server
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