How Nicaraguan Villagers Built Their Own Electric Grid | Hacker News Reader

How Nicaraguan Villagers Built Their Own Electric Grid

spectrum.ieee.org

83 pointsjonbaer17 comments

Whenever I see articles on remote electric grids, it always inspires me to (re)read this classic page: http://ludens.cl/paradise/turbine/turbine.html

That's great! That's a nice little hydro plant.

I particularly like how he wire-wraps his own transformer. Actually, goes even further - builds his own 10 kVa wirewrapping machine, because the old one that his friend gave him as a present wasn't large enough.

I think it says something about the guy (and his friends) that his friends give him transformer wire-wrapping machines as presents.

I handwound a stator and I would have been very happy with such a present... That's a ton of work if you want to do it nicely.

That's a great link. Thanks for sharing.

Wow, fantastic read! Incredible.

I love his wiring loom in the second picture. I knew as soon as I saw that that I'd love this article.

Partly because it reminded me of all the time I spent lacing similar looms. http://www.dairiki.org/hammond/cable-lacing-howto/

Discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6895582

The comments are mostly similar to the replies here.

I have nothing to add, except to say what a fantastic article!

It's so cool to see people working on things like this. In my eyes, this has a much great impact than another mobile-app-social-network-for-sharing-pictures, and is definitely something I'd like to get involved somehow at one point in my career.

We'll have to forgive the mainstream for being mainstream and following newness like digital/web/apps as shallow and even saddening as it can be.

I too hope to see small scale 'decentralized' human effort to enhance areas this way. Even in so-called 'developed' countries, there are rural regions falling out and people are still relying on the idea of a powerful state to take care of things whereas the reality is that the energy/desire is gone and companies don't care about small markets like these. Sooner or later people will realize that they're on their own. For the better.

When I visited Nicaragua 10+ years ago, I was impressed by Grupo Fenix, a mix of locals and visitors who build solar cookers and photovoltaic systems for rural communities. If you are interested in learning more or getting involved with this sort of thing, they have a volunteer program: http://www.grupofenix.org

For background on the Nicaraguan 'Contras':

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contras

Benjamin Linder seems to have been a genuinely nice guy working to put his skills at use to really move the needle, it's a real pity he was murdered for trying to do good.

Via that link, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_re... - good to see someone producing a convenient wiki list.

wow, Spectrum is incredibly unfriendly to viewing in a full-width browser window. I still feel a bit nauseous from having 2/3 of the screen width filled with giant distractions that pulsate and move when I accidentally mouse over them.

I've created a userstyle that makes IEEE Spectrum palatable. If you use Stylish, check it out: https://userstyles.org/styles/112927/ieee-spectrum-suckless

US and USSR, wherever they went left destruction, broken societies and economies, Nicaragua, rest of Africa, Afghanistan...

For some reason I imagined a bunch of villagers holding hands in a chain while the guy on the end is touching a transformer.

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