A crash course in changing the world.

ACT 3: Solar power source for USB gadgets

Supplies finally arrived. Here's a little "instructable" for building a solar power source for your gadgets. It's much easier than you'd think.

Supplies

Get your solar panel. A USB device charges at about 5 volts, but it can work at a little less (4.8-5.4V are a safe threshold). In addition, pay attention to the amperage; this solar panel maxes out at 200mA, sufficient to charge almost any device. I ordered a 7.2 volt solar panel @ 200mA. 7.2V is a bit too much, but the USB adaptor should step it down to 5V automatically.
Use a multimeter to double check the voltage and amperage. Here, I was in a dimly lit room, so I'm getting a rather low amperage.
Strip the end of the cigarette lighter socket and connect the red wire to the solar panel's red wire and the white wire to the solar panel's black wire.
Plug the USB socket adaptor into the socket.
Put solar panel out in the sun and connect a device. It should start charging!

Comment by Nicholas Nagao on March 29, 2010 at 2:23am: Awesome! What are the results so far? How long to get a full charge on a normal device? Any data on how many hours of the day you're actually getting a charge? Could you include a link for where you got the solar panels too :)

Comment by Nicolas Dykstra on March 29, 2010 at 2:34am: This is sweet, do you know if they sell any commercially so I don't have to make it myself??/ I'm not the best with electronics.

Comment by Nathaniel Fruchter on March 29, 2010 at 3:25am: Sundance Solar is a great supplier for solar panels. They have pretty much anything you can imagine on there.

Commercial products:

Here's a more expensive but faster/higher capacity solar charger. This is a foldable one (that's basically the same design as mine with more solar panels connected in parallel for a faster charge). As you can see, they don't come cheap, an advantage to building your own. ^_^

Comment by Nicholas Nagao on March 29, 2010 at 3:54am: Thank you! Off to do some shopping now :)

Comment by Nicholas Nagao on March 29, 2010 at 3:56am: Hey Nicolas, I found this on the site Nathaniel posted :)

http://store.sundancesolar.com/soposochfori.html

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