Camp for Climate Action 2008 Extras

Tech Notes & Power

Power Examples

These are real world examples just to give some idea of what we are likely to encounter.

• Dell Inspiron 300m ultaportable, 2003 vintage Pentium M 1.2GHz low voltage processor 12.1" screen

(source http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000562.html)

Laptop off, battery charging 63w

Laptop on, idle, battery removed 15w

All subsequent tests were run with the battery physically removed from the machine.

Turning screen brightness to minimum saved 4w

hard drive in use added 3w

wifi enabled added 1w to 4w

cpu under 100% load added11w

• Various Apple notebooks

(source http://www.girr.org/mac_stuff/laptop_power.html)

15" 1.25 GHz G4 PowerBook 18w to 41w, average 25w, charging 65w

12" 1.2 GHz G4 iBook 12w to 25w, average 16w, charging 43w

12" 500 MHz G3 iBook 11w to 24w, average 15w, charging 32w

display backlight consumed 4.5 more watts from the minimum brightness setting to the full brightness settin

• Acer Aspire 9425WSMi

(http://techlogg.com/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=294)

With the notebook off but the battery charging, the unit consumed 73.7-watts. No change in power consumption whether the notebook was “resting” on the Windows desktop or charging through one of our UserBench benchtests. The result was the same – 85.6-watts!!!

• Lenovo 3000 N100

(http://techlogg.com/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=294)

Charging up the battery, the power consumption was 40.6-watts

Sitting on Windows desktop and charging the battery at the same time, power draw rose to 63 watts.

By the time we cranked up UserBench Audio 2007, that consumption topped 80.1-watts

• Sony’s Vaio VGN-TX47GP 12-inch model in various states.

(http://techlogg.com/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=294)

With the notebook off and the battery charging, it consumed 24.2-watts. Boot up into Windows desktop and the cost is 37.1-watts. By the time we through our UserBench Audio 2007 benchmark at it, the power reached 41.2-watts.

• Linksys NSLU2 which can run linux uses 7 watts

• Dell Latitude 820D with Core2Duo processor and 17" LCD 30 watts (not charging)

" if you want to wring the most energy efficiency out of your notebook computer, take the battery out when it's plugged in. Doing so has a side benefit, as well. Certain types of batteries will wear out faster if they undergo the constant recharging that occurs each time you plug your notebook into an electrical outlet. So by removing the battery, you'll both save electricity and extend the life of the batter itself. "

Power provision we know about

Provider	Type/set-up	Max hours @ 200w	Max hours @ 800w
Sat Van built-in	12volts x 220Ah, 2 x 85w panels
Ben	6 x 100Ah 12v batteries, 2 x 80w pv, 2 x 30w pv, 4 x 10w pv, 20amp pv regulator, 600w cont invertor, 300w cont invertor, wind turbine 200w@6m/s plus dump regulator,
Sam	UNTESTED - Brand new rig, Batteries in a slightly unknown state. 24v/ 240v x 2000ah. 340w panels. 1kw wind turbine. Inverter rated 3kw.

Power Requirement Calculations

First attempts here...

Minimum

This is bear minimum to provide on site phones and internet access on demand at any time when nothing else is in use. The figure is lowest if 3G works on site. The sat kits uses about 70 watts compared to 15 watts for the 3G wireless router.

• 15w 3G router (or 70w if satellite is the only option)
• 40w server plus drive (may be OTT)
• 30w ip phones and pbx box (this is a guess as I don't know what the pbx is running on)

Total = 85w - 140w for perhaps 16 hrs/24

1.36kwh to 2.2kwh over 16 hours

Average

In addition to the bear minimum which would be used even when nobody is using anything, we can add a minimum typical use of two or three thin clients being used during the day by the media team, people needings to look something up etc. Beyond that, average use might also include the photo desk, the full thin client suite and the TV studio.

• 35w for two thin clients
• 85w minimum with 3G and no sat

plus

• 200w for the full thin client suite plus the sat

or

• 40w photo desk
• 80w for tv studio
• 80w for two people using their own laptops, battery unplugged

Total = 320w for 6 hrs/24

~1.92kwh over 6 hours

(add minimum and average together to get 1.36 + 1.9 = 3.26 kwh per day)

Maximum

The peak use will probably be during the day of action with all the public public access terminals in use, all possible internet connectivity up and running, people using all the additional thin clients for newswire work, press statements etc plus the photo desk and people using their own machines to process and upload photos or video.

• 520w for all the average stuff
• 35w for two additional thin clients
• 25w for random cameras and phones left on charge
• 40w for another laptop in the video suite, battery unplugged
• 100w for stuff in the radio suite (total guess)
• 80w for two more people (4 now) using their own laptops, batteries unplugged

Total = 800w for 8 hrs on day of action

~6.4kwh during that 8 hours alone!!

Power Calculations, attempt 2

The Phone System

20w * Asterisk PBX box (Lloyd) 5w * Six IP phones (Lloyd) 2w * Two ATAs with FXO&FXS (Ben's Zoom plus one other, Lloyd?) 4w * Two TELULAR SX53e GSM gateways (Ben) 4w * Two WP-S1 Skypephones (Ben)

(be useful to know the what the PBX is running on as I've just guessed the power)

Total 35w 24/7 = 0.840kwh

Off site, the phone system will also make use of Blasterisk (in Colorado) and two always on windows boxes anywhere with broadband. We don't need to worry about that power consumption.

The Internet System

14w * Draytek 2910 VG dual WAN router with Wifi (Ben) 1w * Haewui E220 unlocked 3G modem with hi gain antenna (Ben) 70w * Satellite TX RX modem (Mike) 5w * Switch (BW? Mike? or Ben?) 30w * Server running squid, apache, LTSP (BW or Mike?)

Total 50w 24/7 with 3G only = 1.2kwh or 105w 24/7 with Satellite only = 2.52kwh or 120w 8/24 with both, plus 50w 16/24 3G only over night = 1.76kwh

Computers

130w * 8 thin clients for web suite (BW) Total 130w 4/24 = 0.52kwh

70w * 4 thin clients for other uses (BW) 70w * Three IBM Thinkpad X20 (Ben) Total 140w 8/24 = 1.12kwh

Total So Far

1.76 + 0.52 + 1.12 +0.84 = 4.24 kwh per day

This doesn't include tv studio, random charging or anyone using their own laptops. I think the TV studio would bring the figure up to 5 kwh per day. Think the radio studio is pretty much covered in the existing calculations.

To put all that into perspective my 200w worth of solar panels would produce 1 kwh per day assuming 5 hours of full sunshine. That means we'd need 1,000 watts of solar (assuming plenty of sunshine) to cover out needs (not factoring in charging and invertor inefficiencies).

Or look at a wind gene rated at 200w at 6m/s (about 1m/s over the average wind speed in that location measured over a whole year) and for ease of calculating, lets say it achieves that rated speed for just 25% of the time. That would mean 1.2kwh per day, about a quarter of our needs. But if we experienced over average winds we'd could see 100% of our needs supplied.

TV studio

20w * Three video cameras, with batteries charging (Undercurrents) 5w * video mixer [that's a guess] (Undercurrents) 80w * Two laptops, batteries unplugged, for direct to disk capturing and editing.

Total 105w 7/24 = 0.74 kwh per day

That's assuming seven hours of work each day shooting, mixing, edit and capturing but not including any additional editing time, equipment or charging beyond that time.

Radio Studio

Note sure about this. Think the LTSP server will provide their streaming box so is already covered and I've already factored in the thinkpads which they might use for audio editing. I don't know anything about their decks, amps etc but that can't be much and won't be running for long either.

Whos Bringing What

Ben

 * Draytek dual WAN/3G router (with unlocked 3G modem, three & t-mobile PAYG sims) with wifi and higain omnis plus 11dBi directional 3g antenna = 15 watts
 * wifi client/ethernet bridge (so we can connect LAN to another nearby tent without wires)
 * x3 Thinkpad X20 (PIII, 800mhz), PSU, no drives but boots over PXE = ~25 watts each
 * x1 sub-notebook PII 333mhz, 15v, firewire, pccard ethernet, needs hd, no os currently = ~20 watts
 * 2ghz dual core laptop with firewire = ~80 watts
 * Peavey RQ200 mixer for radio (can run on x2 9v PP3 batteries) = ~5 watts
 * 24 port gigabit switch
 * x2 GSM gatewayes
 * x2 GSM skypephones
 * Zoom ATA 5801
 * wifi IP phone
 * x2 plug in energy meters 
 * plus power stuff listed elsewhere

Bristol Wireless

 * x8 newer thin clients for open access suite = ~140 w total
 * x4~ older thin clients for media team, news desk, reception = ~60w total
 * ltps server, switch, psu, cables etc = ~40w

Budget and spending

Total £1,075

The power related stuff was take out of the budget proposal and moved to the power groups budget.

£450 for satellite internet provision

To cover mikes costs of getting the sat truck there, data tarrif etc

£350 for phone stuff

£200 - for media team phones. doubled from last year to take into account actual useage. Hopefully it will actually cost less since we are sorting out cheap outgoing calls, if so, any excess can be shuffled around to cover any overspend elsewhere.

£50 - Purchased two GSM Fixed Cellular Terminals (hope they are unlocked!) so that the cheap outgoing calls are available from the on site voip phones.

£30 (to £60) - I've signed up for a Solo contract (1,400 minutes, unlimted texts) which will provide cheap outgoing calls. It has 30 days notice for cancellation so may end up having to pay two months.

Will need another cheap sim deal, perhaps the 02 simplicity for a bit of network diversity (add another 25 - 30 quid unless we can borrow a contract SIM off somebody).

£70 - Two PAYG skypephones which (with a bit of offsite windows magic) should be able to be setup up as two concurrent incoming trunks for free call forwarding from the info link.

£100 for media pool

This is to cover storage media for the photo and video pool. Looks like we will get two 500gb drives at £50 each.

£100 for interview travel expenses

Media team sometimes need to travel for interviews. Mostly the media company pay the costs but not always.

£100 for sundries, blank cd/dvds etc

Doubt we will really need this much. If we exceed our data transfer caps we could take any additional PAYG 3G top up from this budget (it's a consumable).

Things to do and ideas to explore re info / reporting line

To Do / questions?

• look into audio blogging and maybe using it for the info line latest news feature

• research re-purposing asterisk voice mail as a way to do 'latest news' on info line

• see if there are better ways of doing text to speech or should we avoid it?

• can callers send texts to basterisk? and how would that be useful if possible?

• what use can we make of 'unlimited' texts? (something comms might find useful?)

• could we do a 'useful numbers request' text back service?

• phone based access to camp radio stream? is that stupid? (for listening maybe, but not the other way round)

• any way to make conference rooms more useful in our context? (by combing them with text message invites?)

• what can twitter do? can people set up unmoderated twitters?

• how can we asterisk call logging as a tool for dispatch? (using grep and pipes?)

• what can we do with skypephones, 4000 free minutes and skype to sip?

(send it out in the field for free access to blasterisk (via voxeo) for audio blogging/reports?) (use it as a roaming microphone/outdoor broadcast unit for the radio?)

General Ideas

• using twitter to announce important more detailed news on infoline

• twitter announced teleconferencing for working groups / affinity groups

• group voice mail for working groups / affinity groups

• audio blogs for individuals / affinity groups

• automated questionnaire for arrest reporting

• provide a call back service to legal support team / medics

info line specific ideas

• days news summary (different from latest news)

• todays workshops broken down into morning / afternoon

• next workshops and locations

• next meal - planned menus for each neighborhood

• site wish list (useful before people arrive perhaps)

• site job list (useful during the camp itself perhaps)

• audio press statements?

• reporting line guidelines / howto

• tide times and weather