Louis

Hi there Wyatt! Welcome That Batt-Latch has a wild price tag! Depending on the application, you could probably hack something together with an Arduino and a servo or something. Looks like that device can hold a lot of pressure though so matching that may be tough. And then there's waterproofing... Have you ever played with Arduino? The other devices you speak about are a little bit outside of my domain but somebody may come along with some ideas!

I wonder if there is a kind of balance that can be had. I think a traditional licensing model could end up being more trouble than its worth. Companies like Apple [spend more on legal fees than R&D](http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2012/10/08/in-two-years-the-smartphone-industry-has-spent-more-than-20-billion-spent-on-patent-litigation/)! One solution is that the developer try to maintain an online storefront, but to outsource actual production and fulfillment as much as possible. Perhaps this means a one month lead-time for these types of mechanical projects. Granted that it takes more involvement than licensing, but it gives the developer a stronger "brand-name" helping them compete against possible knock-offs. It benefits the developer too because they have direct customer contact and feedback this way. Its certainly money well spent compared to legal fees. Work could then still be released open-source, but periodically allowing the developer to arrange parternships for distribution. Openness for physical tools is less of a catalyst for parallel development since they have more barriers than that of software. Generating an identical build to someone else's is exceedingly difficult. On the other hand, providing kits so that co-developers can exist may be a revenue stream in itself.

This looks very cool! Looking at things, I understand you space issue. Bladders or something to store water beneath the pallets seems a good idea. Hanging something from the hoops inside might block the sun for your plants though? Maybe you could design a system to circulate water outside during the day to capture sunlight and heat.

So you're doing: Panel -(1)-> 12V Battery -(2)-> 115V AC -(3)-> Appliances Seems like you have (2) and (3) pretty well figured out. The inverter is definitely right I take it the bucket and base both have standard outlets for 115-120V AC. I would wonder about (1) on the input side (the output to the battery makes sense). Specifically, what are the min and max voltage panel inputs it expects? Have you selected a panel that matches that? Now that all the voltages line up, I would think about watts/current (remember, Watts = Current * Voltage). How often does the heater and pad need to be on? How many watts do they consume when they are on? Given your charger, you can only draw 5W from the solar panels, regardless of voltage. If you always had 5W from solar panels and always had your appliances on, you would need to make sure you only drew 5W, not the 400W maximum that it is rated for. But your panels aren't always on and I doubt your appliances draw THAT much current, so do the calculation of how much sun you can expect and how much current you will be drawing. You will probably want a timer so that you can switch the appliances on and off. Also, just a thought, have you looked at solar water heaters? You might get away with more that way. The reason is, all this conversion of electricity gives you an efficiency drops. It's too bad that most appliances need 120V AC because they end up rectifying it and using DC locally. It would be nice to regulate the 12V DC another DC level rather than going DC-AC-DC.

Glad you pointed that out. Please let me know if you spot any other issues!