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Theses/Dissertations

2014

Electrical and Computer Engineering

DC House

Articles 1 - 7 of 7

Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Merry-Go-Round Human Powered Generator, Sarah Lorraine Ashe, Salvador Navarro Jun 2014

Merry-Go-Round Human Powered Generator, Sarah Lorraine Ashe, Salvador Navarro

Electrical Engineering

How do you bring electricity to families who have limited resources in a developing country? The DC House project, advised by Dr. Taufik, provides a way for kids to have fun, exercise and generate power for their homes – play-park human powered generators. This project intends to create a more efficient and cost effective way for playground equipment to be implemented for power generation. The redesigned and reconstructed merry-go-round human powered generator converts mechanical energy into electrical energy to power the DC house. This was a fully functioning generator that needed a better voltage gain, as well as, a more …


Human-Powered Swing Generator, Danny Cai, Timothy Lai, Brandon Wong Jun 2014

Human-Powered Swing Generator, Danny Cai, Timothy Lai, Brandon Wong

Electrical Engineering

Many developing countries lack sufficient resources to provide enough electricity for every family to live with a satisfying level of comfort and convenience. Our project proposes a solution that provides families with an alternative access to electricity using a playground swing. This project addresses the design and construction of the Human-Powered Swing Generator, which converts mechanical energy to electrical energy for charging a battery. The charged battery serves as a source of DC energy for potential DC purposes, such as charging a cell phone.


Design Improvement For The Smart Dc Wall Plug, Cory Yee, Haoyan Huang Jun 2014

Design Improvement For The Smart Dc Wall Plug, Cory Yee, Haoyan Huang

Electrical Engineering

The DC smart wall plug is a subsystem within the Cal Poly DC House Project. The previous version faces challenges supplying DC voltage to meet household appliances’ nominal values. Specifically, it can only output the minimum required voltage for DC appliances to operate, resulting in unwanted power loss. In addition, the maximum output voltage is rated at 15V, which is insufficient to power most DC appliances. This design improvement project incorporates NFC technology as a solution to overcome the power loss and a new buck converter configuration to increase the output voltage range. Additionally, the new design introduces short-circuit and …


Portable Nano Hydro Generator For The Dc House Project, Caleb David Fink, Victor Olusoji Ojewole, Christopher Mapua Tan Jun 2014

Portable Nano Hydro Generator For The Dc House Project, Caleb David Fink, Victor Olusoji Ojewole, Christopher Mapua Tan

Electrical Engineering

This Senior Project entails the design and testing processes of the Portable Nano Hydro Generator for the continuing DC House Project. No natural resources should go unused, especially in developing countries where they are found in abundance. Small streams in particular have potential to further Professor Taufik's DC House Project that will provide electricity to 1.6 billion people in the world without access to electricity upon completion. The goal of this project is to create a small portable generator that utilizes the discharge from small streams and convert it into useable electricity that could charge a car battery as an …


Integration Of Pv & Simulated Dc Sources For The Dc House, Arvind Ramesh, Kevin Gingrich, Scott Chau Jun 2014

Integration Of Pv & Simulated Dc Sources For The Dc House, Arvind Ramesh, Kevin Gingrich, Scott Chau

Electrical Engineering

The DC House, an ever improving project, uses only pure DC power which most renewable energy sources generate, from solar to wind power. The DC House and this project expect a donation of photovoltaic modules to supply a constant source of DC power. At the moment, the DC House desperately needs power sources because not only does the house have various loads unaccounted for, but the distribution system to determine proper power flow needs a redesign. The project chose to account for these issues by implementing a solar panel onto the DC House and a power distribution module to have …


Smart Wall Outlet Design And Implementation For The Dc House Project, Kevin Roy Mendoza Jun 2014

Smart Wall Outlet Design And Implementation For The Dc House Project, Kevin Roy Mendoza

Master's Theses

Most everyday AC appliances are designed to operate off of 120V coming from the wall outlet in our homes. This voltage is a standard set from our established infrastructure. Unlike AC devices, DC devices do not have any set standard of voltage they all will run off of. This presents a problem for the DC house as the various loads that will be used will have different required input voltages. One set voltage for a wall outlet will not suffice for the DC House. This Smart Wall Outlet is designed with a DC-DC converter that will have its output voltage …


Improvements To A Bi-Directional Flyback Dc-Dc Converter For Battery System Of The Dc House Project, Michael Wu Jun 2014

Improvements To A Bi-Directional Flyback Dc-Dc Converter For Battery System Of The Dc House Project, Michael Wu

Master's Theses

The DC House project relies primarily on renewable energy sources to provide DC power to the various loads of the house. However, not all renewable sources are capable of providing power at all times of the day. A back-up energy source in the form of a battery storage system must be available to meet the electrical needs of the house. A bi-directional flyback power converter was initially designed to allow a battery to charge from as well as discharge to the 48V bus line of the DC House. The design provided a 35W prototype to demonstrate the converter’s feasibility. Further …