Solar Payoff Calculator

Yukod Software is happy to announce that it has made another useful app. After getting stuck with a heap of questions in regards to finding out the best solar power system to buy for our house we realized that we were getting slowed down by calculations in regards to how long it would take for the power system to pay itself off. Furthermore, we wanted to know exactly what sort of effect an efficiency drop or increase in an inverter or wiring materials would have on the payoff period and this slowed down the calculations even more. We then embarked on a mission to search the internet in order to find a tool to help us with this but there were none that met our needs. We had no choice but to make a calculator for ourselves, and the idea has paid itself off already! We were able to use our calculator to compare a dozen different solar system deals and finally select one that was best suited for our premises. We saved around $2000 by selecting a system that is best optimised for our house!

You can now do the same and help yourself with our calculator as we have published it under the name Solar Payoff Calculator Pro. It features a simple user interface with all the necessary boxes at your fingertips and calculations updated immediately after each value is changed. The calculator estimates the payoff time even if you don't have all the information, such as losses or feed in tariffs. Because we made the calculator for our own use there is still some room for error in terms of users entering data that is not sensible. If we see that there is sufficient interest we may invest more work into this and make the necessary updates, but until then please familiarise yourself with all the terms and calculations so that you can make the best estimates possible.

A free (Lite) version of the app is also available which has all the capabilities as the full version except the database (which is capped to 3 entries) and the power rating, which is capped at 3500W (come on, if you invest $5000 for a 4kW system, you might as well invest $10 into an app that will help you save anywhere from $500-2000!).

As we have written a little more about the app on Google Play store, we advise that you head over there to check out the description and the screenshots! Link on the pic below.

Electron Config Pro released

After several months of development we'd like to present the ultimate tool for predicting ground state electron configurations of atoms in almost any oxidation state - Electron Config Pro (link at the bottom of the page).

Electron configurations are taught at various levels of education. Possibly the first instance of a student being introduced to the atomic electron configurations is in high school, but the knowledge is revised and updated at all university-level science and technology courses. There is literally not a single science course where introductory chemistry is not a requirement, and many students fail to understand how electron configurations work or how to write them. Furthermore, many students who think that they've understood it still end up making mistakes when it comes to tests and exercises. Fear no more.

In this app we present the theory in a way that should be easy to comprehend at any educational level where electron configurations are taught, and mostly because we've tried to explain not only the hows, but also the whys. We call our theory a summary, but it really contains a very large amount of information that discusses a lot of physics and chemistry of the atom. And when we say large, we mean over 8000 words, or roughly 10-11 pages.

But that's just the theory. Everyone can find the very same theory in their books and on the internet; we just included it for convenience. What really separates our app from the rest is that it is an interactive, dynamic electron configurations engine that is capable of calculating almost any desired electron configuration. By going through a list of elements and then playing with the add/remove electron buttons (which are called Oxidise and Reduce!), students can learn how the configurations change almost as if by performing an actual experiment! Our engine incorporates the Aufbau principle, which incorporates the Pauli exclusion principle, Hund's rules and the Madelung-Klechkowskii rule, but also the exceptions to the Madelung-Klechkowskii rules which were determined experimentally!

In addition, we also include exercises where students can test their electron configuration writing skills by attempting to write electron configurations for some random atoms in some random oxidation states. Yes, this means there is literally an unlimited supply of questions! We include some other perks with the app, but it's best if you head over there to see the screenshots for yourself!