NoFossil in the public eye

[Nofossil]

My friends at SunWood systems here in Vermont were kind enough to offer me table space in their exhibit at the Vermont Renewable Energy Expo in Burlington last week. It was a last-minute offer, and the only thing I had to exhibit was a system that's due to ship this week along with a plastic dollhouse that I borrowed from my wife's work. I had the dollhouse set up with a variable speed control driving a radiant heating system (actually, a night light) using closed loop PI control with outdoor reset logic. I also had my Nokia 810 handheld wireless computer so I could walk around and monitor / control the heating system. They had me set up between a Froling cordwood boiler and Froling pellet boiler.

It ended up being a hit. People were really interested. We got mentioned in the keynote address and made the cover of the 'Green Mountain' section of the state's big newspaper. I talked with the reported who does the 'green' news for the paper about doing a feature article on wood gasification - we'll see what happens.

I guess this is another step on the long and painful journey from hobby to commercial business. Thanks for all the helpful comments and feedback from everyone. Extra thanks to all my 'early adopter' customers, and especially the SunWood folks for offering the opportunity.

 

[Mid Michigan]

Sweet! Very nice!
Good Luck, and how many night lights would it take to heat my house?

 

[webbie]

Neato!

Nofossil hits the VT big time!

 

[sdrobertson]

Great Job Nofossil. Did you get any bites from the manufacturers? Not to get ahead of a proposed commercial enterprise but you may think globally.

 

[Nofossil]

Neato!

Nofossil hits the VT big time!

Hitting the big time in Vermont is a little bit like hitting the lottery for $1.50, but it's nice all the same.

The dollhouse is a prop for a system design and programming tutorial that I had just started. I'm not even done with page one, but my lovely wife insisted (quite rightly) that it was the perfect thing to bring to the show.

You'd need a lot of night lights to heat your home, at least based on data from the Fisher-Price residence. Of course, they had no windows at first, and that probably doesn't help.

 

[Nofossil]

Great Job Nofossil. Did you get any bites from the manufacturers? Not to get ahead of a proposed commercial enterprise but you may think globally.

There's a really fine line between healthy growth and premature optimism. There's a good deal of interest, and if I get the volume up I might be able to lower the cost (and price) at some point. That would all be good. However, I don't want to get a lot of units out there until I get a lot more real-world experience with them. It would be a very bad thing to ship a bunch and then discover a real problem. My early customers have been great, and I'm getting good suggestions and invaluable learning on what these units need to have to be ready for prime time.

Your comment about global reach is pretty relevant. The NFCS is Celsius internally, but I hadn't cleaned up the GUI for unit conversion when I first released the code. Two of my initial customers are from Canada, so I had to take care of that early on.

In my other life, I'm a process improvement consultant for manufacturing companies. Maybe that will come in handy ;-)

 

[shoeboxlen]

congrats on the press nofossil. you have a cool setup and a neat product to offer and there is deffinitly a market for it!

 

[kabbott]

Congrats, You and the software are both worthy.

As for the article on gasification it is much needed. I am a long way from Vermont but around here if you talk about gasification you get a blank
stare from most people. I never heard of it before I found this site a few years back. I can't understand why anyone would not want gasification
other not knowing/understanding it.

 

[sgschwend]

Congrats, that stuff is always a lot of fun.

Never thought about using a night light for a heater, good idea there too. I remember when LEDs were so week you had to put your eye right up to them, now they would blind you.

 

[jebatty]

Positive info into the public mainstream from a great contributor and volunteer, like you, is worth more than many of us may accomplish in a lifetime. Thank you.

 

[Gooserider]

Congratulations on the publicity... I like the tutorial intro, especially the message for the lawyers. :lol:

Gooserider

 

[Nofossil]

Thanks for all the kind words and encouragement. I feel lucky and a bit surprised that something I came up with for the fun of it is actually useful in the real world. It usually doesn't work that way. Right now I'm struggling with how to keep it fun and turn it into a real commercial product at the same time.

The two might be mutually exclusive to some degree :-(

 

[Donl]

I think you have come up with something very useful and exciting. I wish you all the best with this.

Don

 

[stee6043]

My only question is - did you run slant fin (or equivalent) on the doll house before sizing the night light? Is it properly insulated? HA!

Very cool and congrats!

 

[Chris Hoskin]

congratulations Nofossil! Great exposure for a great idea and for the industry in general. It was great to meet you too, I look forward to the next time.

Chris