Author: Ian

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Progress on Consumer Monitor and Energy Divert

The energy monitors have been running consistently and reliably on Site 1 I’m running two copies of the hardware to reduce TTF (Time to failure of the setup and gather more data). They have both been delivering data to the logging website reliably. The second remote has run intermittently but has stayed up for periods of a month and then stopped transmitting without explanation. I’m improving the software of the consumer monitors and will update them soon showing the published data on the Logging Website.

Energy Diverting

So the excess power generated by Solar panels at each site is exported to the Grid. Power companies pay micro generators a very small bounty of a few pence per Kilowatt hour generated and an energy diverter would allow the micro generator to make use of that energy themselves.  If you have a use for this energy there are very few ways that you can get at it. But I can see ways that that this energy can be harvested and deployed beyond current available technology

 

Existing Energy divert solutions

The following are the existent energy divert solutions.

  1. House Battery Storage : Many solutions
  2. Dump excess energy into your hot water tank Eddi
  3. Charge your Electric vehicle e.g.  Zappi Charger

New Energy Diverter Solution

I’m proposing another energy divert solution that will use our CUMonitor Box and Divert energy to any Resistive  load such as a Hot water immersion heater.

Here is a log recorded from last summer you can clearly see that the chosen points for attaching the current clamps show the record of the PV generated(Green Trace) and the power flow to the Grid (Orange Trace). The Astute will also notice the strong correlation between these two traces.

Also we can see the difference between the two traces  must be the Residual power consumed by the house.

The Solid yellow line on the bottom plot reflects the state of an LED on the electricity meter which indicates power flow to the grid up until the sun goes in at about 3.5 minutes into the trace.

So from the values provided by the CUMonitor we may calculate the spare energy.

Another interesting point on this plot it the switching off of a load in the house at just after 9 minutes it.

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RPGs played in 2022

We tried to expand out poll this year but many facebook administrators decided to block our Survey so the results may be skewed. We got nearly 1600 votes cast and here are the results.

We have generated the 11 winners from all the Voters and we will be contacting you via facebook messenger over the next week. To get a postal address for your free gifts.

Grand prize is a GMLight Core set

Each of the 10 runners up will get a set of Big Bad Golden Tokens

Or may contact us to change this to a 5E Flavour pack for GMLight

Happy new year to you all and have a prosperous 2023.

 

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GMLight Living with 5E

GMLight 5e the elephant in the room

So GMLight was created to provide a handy way to put together the minimum set of resources needed to Run a Fantasy Role playing Game. Giving a selection 25mm tokens to cover most Random encounters. A select number of 50mm tokens for “Big” monsters. A set of 6 Dungeon tiles that offer a sufficiently large space to draw most maps. A handy Dry wipe pen with inbuilt eraser. Space for a set of Monster cards  giving you monster stats on hand. A standard set of Dice !

The problem with 5e is that DM’s consider two D20s essential to roll with Advantage/Disadvantage and GMLight only includes a single D20 (the minimum required as you can always role twice).

Living with 5e

The problem is that there is a fixed amount of space in the case and the selection of Monster tokens is as comprehensive as we could make it and fit within the case. We did think about how the kit would be used with 5e when we designed the case. If you are willing to not take the BUG tokens an extra D20 will fit in this space.

Future Developments

We are thinking of making a thicker GMLight case that consists of two trays back to back which would offer more resources and open flat. This would be more 5e friendly allowing more Dice cards and resources to be added.  Let me know in the comments if you would be interested in a bigger GMLight case and what additional resources would you like to see space for.

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GMLight 5e Flavour Packs release

Much cut down from our original aspirations we are releasing the 5E flavour pack for GMLight this is a limited Edition in as much as we will be upgrading the Artwork on the front of the DM’s screen and adding artwork for those cards missing it. But that said it does pack a punch with 90 Monster cards  and a Travel DM screen.

The 90 Monster cards are printed double sided with a stat block on each side where we could fit them. Vampires are a bit of a tough one and take up two sides. So the cards have stat blocks and descriptions for 179 ! creatures.

The Monster cards are dry wipe and work with the GMLight Pen. So you can keep track of monster HP right on the card. We’ve added reminder Images in grey behind the text that show a Standard human fighter next to the Creatures and  don’t reduce the cards real estate.

Our aim was to get as much value on the cards as we could.  To provide the user with as much information and value as possible. We could have made them coloured but that would almost certainly rendered the Text unreadable.

 

We are working on status indicators and are using stickers to provide the combat tracking and extra functionality like character status  see the Rogue next to the Oni in the Image above.

These stickers are a limited edition (we have about 50 of them) and they will be given away free with the 5e Flavour packs until they are gone. The original idea was to get coloured plastic cast into the  shape below but they make a good attempt of fulfilling the intended roles and are a good deal smaller.

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GMLight Gets first Flavour Pack

Surprise its 5E

We have on order the GM screens and Monster cards for the first flavour pack for GMLight.

The should be available on the website in the next week or so !

 

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A week of Gaming II

Again in the Isle of Wight we meet to Game. Closetting ourselves in the Little Barn we started on the 22nd of October with ICFTLLLS

ICFTLLLS "Furries Every where"

Largest GM session with a single GM I’ve played in since the Historic Gaming in Ringmer

We bumbled our way thought a B Movie Role playing the Away team of a Battle Star. Curious Mashup of Battle Star Galactica meets Star Trek. Alistair made heroic efforts to try to get us to follow the “Script”… Lots of Silliness and exasperation from the Rag Tag Group of Misfit.

Space 1889 "Occupy Mars !"

Continuation of the Last Scenario… Except we went thru a portal to Mars to a Desert Temple which for no fully explored reason proceeded to Explode. More Mahem less plot

Tims system "Oh God !"

Explored a Problem created by a fumble from Peters Character and spent  Spent most of the first Random encounter stunned then 3 hours watching the group play while My Character was waiting for Some NPC’s to Come and pick up the Hill Giant which we had captured in the random encounter. Problem ended up as something we had to refer to NPCs to solve.

The five Villages

The arrival of a mysterious character at Castle Kendall provokes a series of investigations leading to the discovery of five Villages in a mist shrouded marsh where the inhabitants appeared to be living a life of ease and security. That masked the sinister secret of their Vampire overlords. The mist was being derived from a lava pit in a druids circle. Conspiracies abound as the character is revealed to be a Character not played for 20 years apparently returning from the grave. With loads of combat with the children of the night. This was a campaign Arc I’ve been running for about 20 years making a huge leap forward. 

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GMLight Coins

GMLight Coins

Ahead of the KickStarter  we have prototype deliveries for the GMLight Coins…… Stock on order available here soon !

300 25mm metal tokens for all RPGs : Tokens printed on Anodised Aluminium

  • 26 Character tokens,29 NPC tokens,10 Bandits
  • 40 Undead: 10 Zombies,10 Skeletons,5 Ghasts & Ghouls, plus many more including Spirits & Shades, Vampire, Lich, Mummys
  • 63 fauna: including a pack of 5 wolves and many other predators and creatures from the natural world, 15 giant Insects
  • 33 Fiends and Elementals: including Erinyes, Devils, Succubi and Hags.
  • More than 30 Fey including Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, Fairies, Gnomes, Drow, Genii, Nymph, Dryad, Pegasus and Unicorn.
  • 54 fantasy tribal creatures: 10 Orcs, 10 Kobolds, 7 Knoll, 5 Ogres, 6 Lizard Folk, Plus Goblins, Frog Folk, Trolls and Dragon kin.