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Greener Business has put together a $15 Portable Solar Powered USB Charger with an LED Flashlight project that might appeal to the green person within you.
“With this project the thing that makes it really useful is that you can leave the device in the sun, without anything hooked upped to it, then bring it anywhere with you to charge your USB devices, because it’s hooked up to the four AAs not the USB port directly.”
Thanks for the tip Joe.
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Funny. I´ve read that the the energy produced by a solar panel during its lifetime is much less than it takes to manufacture it. Then they are using Nickel-CADMIUM batteries. So much for greener business… 🙂 By the size of the solar panel this thing would probably produce about 0.1W in full sunlight. Charging the batteries will take quite a while with this thing…
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I’m looking forward to the day when solar panels are much more efficient – then everybody can have some on their roof!
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Some of the commercial ones are getting really cheap on ebay. Might buy a few.
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I like the idea of this project, but the execution of it seems like it could use a bit of work.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/10/researchers-create-printed-solar-cells/
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Hi Zach,
Thanks for the article link. The next 3 or 4 years will be an interesting time for solar. I can see a revolution just around the corner as technology changes and cost of development falls.
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Neat idea. I have been looking to build something with a solar panel on it one of these days. I’m not sure when I will get around to it though.