In this article I present an electronic circuit called the Modified Montréal-Saskatoon Miller Solar Engine (hereafter abbreviated MMMSE). This is released as alpha-stage open hardware for use in art projects. The most recent information on this project will live at: peterflemming.ca/flemmweb_current/details/mmmse.html This article attempts to: Briefly provide some background and context of the MMMSE, show how I have used the MMMSE in my own work, make available all necessary files for creating or modifying your own MMMSE and function as a sort of how-to for making and using the MMMSE. Disclaimer: Hopefully there is something of interest here to a broad audience. However, this article contains a fair amount of technical info geared to folks who have an interest in electronics. Therefore, I've divided this article in two. The first part is more general, followed by the technical bits, which can be skipped if that isn't your thing. What is an MMMSE? An MMMSE is a small, simple circuit that is the common, modular core component of a larger project I am working on tentatively called Relaxation Oscillator Network (hereafter abbreviated RON). RON is a system of independently operating electrical devices that use no batteries or AC. Instead, they harvest power from light, wind, electromagnetic fields and other sources. Machines in the network are in Lazymode: there are long periods where they appear to be doing nothing, yet are resting, eating energy, waiting for the right moment, until they accumulate enough to act. Two examples of Lazymode are described below, and videos accompany this text. Currently the heart, brains and stomach of each device in the RON is an MMMSE. In the MMMSE a super capacitor is slowly charged by available sunlight through a solar panel (or other source). I didn't invent this idea (see: http://solarbotics.org/library/circuits/se_t1_mse.html for the Miller solar engine). However the MMMSE is my own modification, optimized for maximum slack. Among other things, this project is an exploration of: Mechanics as a metaphor for collective or individual desires, the possibility of critiquing technology by relatively low or obsolete-tech means and the use of alternative power sources in media artworks. The use of the word "network" is perhaps a bit of a misnomer: there is no communication in the traditional manner with electric signals, and many of the Lazymode machines appear singular and self-contained. However, in another sense, they are physically, intrinsically linked by the fundamental protocol of available energy. What does the name mean? The name is a parody of certain automotive engine naming conventions where the city in which the engine is produced becomes part of it's nomenclature. I started work on this project in a residency in Saskatoon and refined it a lot in my studio in Montréal. A Bit Of Technical Background: What is a Relaxation Oscillator? Relaxation oscillator is a technical term for a type of timer circuit based on the charging and discharging of a capacitor. Imagining electricity as drops of water: a capacitor acts like a bucket that can be filled and drained, over and over. This can be a basis for a clock signal, albeit very "relaxed" and imprecise, by gigahertz standards. I really like the connotations of this term removed from a technical context. It implies the idea of a machine that possesses the capacity for relaxation. |
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