Author Topic: Off-the-Shelf Nano Solar  (Read 3537 times)

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Offline ghurd

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Off-the-Shelf Nano Solar
« on: February 02, 2012, 09:40:17 pm »
I needed to design an efficient portable PV system to power many different items.
Cell phone, digital camera, lighting, GPS, etc.
And I needed to have a working system fast.

My wife wanted to do this week long bicycle trip, "GOBA".
She wanted to take pics with her phone, and upload to the internet, etc., which was hi-tech at the time. This was back before "smart phones with apps".
Bike has a GPS with bells&whistles (grade, speed, cadence, heart rate, windspeed & direction, etc), also hi-tech.

Weight were not an issue for this project, or the battery would have been smaller, and the lights would have been smaller.
The organisers moved equipment (tents, sleeping bags, PV batteries, etc).

The 12V to USB switching regulator was a key device.
Without it, the efficiency would have been too low to keep up with the power requirements.
The portable system could not be deployed until about 1~2PM most days, thus missing most of the solar day.

The LED lantern and tent (area) light I made.
Made the 3 lighter outlets to alligator clips too.

Other than that, the rest of them are semi-common off the shelf items.
With USB power being more standard, they are more common now than they were then.

It worked well.
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