Solar Cell Phone
The other day I ordered some stuff for getting some cell phones off the electric grid as an experiment.
In the mean time I managed to find enough stuff in the lab to get something together that may work.
Here it is. It’s a pair of 12V lead acid batteries (on hand for a bubble machine project), a solar panel (18V) and a USB thingy that was in my business travel stuff. I manged pop the USB thing open and solder it up to connect to the battery. I can also charge the battery from the solar panel. I can rotate the batteries. I think the solar panel is like 1W or 1.5W so I’m concerned it’s going to be a little light. I’m looking at a larger one on ebay so if that doens’t work I’ll upgrade.
I plugged my cell phone onto this with about 1/2 bars and it fully charged it.
After the charge was complete and I disconnected the phone, the system was at 9.43V. I disconnected the USB buck and it went to 9.63V. Hmmm, I guess I need to recharge the lead acid.