CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

I'm planning on powering my cell phone!

...



With the sun!

Nope I'm not suddenly becoming so environmentally insane that I worry about the power my cell phone wastes while charging (though it wouldn't surprise me if the wall wart that they give you is a mere voltage divider). But the thing is, is that I always seem to forget to charge my cell-phone. So I came up with a brilliant idea! I live in Arizona, where it is sunny... It is ALWAYS sunny... except today. I figured that I may as well use the solar energy that roasts my rump every summer to power my cell phone!

I stuck to two panels in series, and though they were rated for putting out only 3V a piece, you can tell just by looking at the voltmeter that this isn't true... and today the weather looks like this:



Yep. When the sun barely peaked through a small thinner layer of clouds, that thing shot up to about 8.4 V. Needless to say, I think I'm going to have to stick these two in parallel to increase my amp output and reduce my voltage to avoid damaging my cell-phone (it's rated to handle up to 500 mA, this thing may put out between 10-20% of that).

But anyways, if I get it all hooked up, I'll tell you how it works!
-Pascal

Wow, seems like a pretty cool idea! I never would have even thought of that!

Aren't there solar trickle chargers already? I'm sure places like Fry's have them.

I tried running an OLPC XO-1 off solar, but I couldn't get enough juice even with a large briefcase-sized panel.

I've seen manufactured solar chargers on market for the last couple years Shoo, but building one on your own IS pretty cool

They do indeed exist in the stores... but.

It only cost me about 8 bucks to build this thing (ok so the other stuff cost more, but I plan on build more electronics, so a breadboard, wires and a voltmeter are kinda necessary). It also gives me some electronics experience working with these things. Finally, I validate it on the fact that it feels less mad-science-like if I just buy one at Walmart.

Today a solar cell... tomorrow an AESA antenna that has search and track for my fm-radio connected to an FM transmitter, so I can play my entire computers play-list while walking around the park, yet having no one know that I'm broadcasting on a commercial FM channel. Mwah ha ha ha... ok, so that's going to be a tad bit more difficult... although the FM transmitter for music doesn't seem that bad (I could just build one to broadcast music around my house).

One of my friends has a radio set up with his TV tuners so he can hear his TV/DVD system in other rooms.

>_> Stupid i465 phone isn't accepting charge, from what I gather it seems as though Motorola didn't use the black and red leads of the usb cords to charge it or some weird thing. The only way to figure out which would be to rip my phone charger apart.

Well that's just peachy. And to think that I soldered it up today and got out 5V at 124 mA! That's nearly 1/5 of what comes out of my wall... I'm quite impressed with my charger, just not my phone for avoiding standards

Are you sure you don't have the polarities backwards?

Finally, I validate it on the fact that it feels less mad-science-like if I just buy one at Walmart.

Pascal, this is why you're awesome and why I miss being here at CAA.

Sucks that the idea didn't work out as planned, but at least you have working solar power for something. I always want to do stuff like this but have yet to take the time to learn to do any of it.

shooraijin (post: 1448879) wrote:Are you sure you don't have the polarities backwards?

Nah, if it was backwards, it would short out and the battery will heat up in a hurry, depending on the current

It puts out 126 mA, and I'm positive I don't have the polarity wrong. I was very careful to color code my wires for + and - and then double checked them with my voltmeter to insure that the voltage was correct. Shame it didn't work, but as Snoring Frog says... that will always leave it available for FUTURE made science experiments.

Now onward to the next idea!

Midknight74012 (post: 1448899) wrote:Nah, if it was backwards, it would short out and the battery will heat up in a hurry, depending on the current

Not if there's a diode protecting the line(s), which there are on many designs. In that case, it would just do nothing.