Archive for the ‘Solar’ Category

DIY Friday: Charge Your iPhone With AAs or Solar Power

Limor Fried’s MintyBoost project is a great example of DIY and commercial tech working together. Take an Altoids tin, a couple of AA batteries, and some very smart hackery, and you’ve got a lightweight USB charger that you can use to charge/run your handheld iWhatever, or almost any other phone, camera, or small device that can take a charge off USB power. About a month ago, she released this video outlining the Apple hackery needed to make this work.

Reverse engineering Apple’s secret charging methods from adafruit industries on Vimeo.

Clive Thompson profiled Fried and her company Adafruit Industries as part of a 2008 feature in Wired on “open source hardware.” The idea is that hackers like Fried can use what they find out about consumer devices to make and sell their own products, but also to produce DIY kits and share information with others who then build their own projects.

As a case study in the value of sharing this information, consider Rob Scott. Before he took his son on a week-long bike trip this summer, he used Fried’s schematic to hack together what turns out to be a really striking-looking solar charger for his son’s iPod.

It’s always nice to see what the maker community is doing to accessorize their retail gadgets; the results aren’t always super-polished, but they generally solve real problems in important use cases that don’t get addressed by manufacturers, either because they’re too unusual or they can’t be easily solved by more plugs, more peripherals, more complex devices that cost a lot of money. And in turn, we all find out a little bit more about how these magical devices get put together and how they work.

See Also:

• DIY Graphing Calculator Is Built From Open Source Hardware
• Why Arduino Is a Hit With Hardware Hackers
• Beautifully Hypnotic Video Details Canon Macro Lens Hack
• Hacker Stuffs MiFi Inside iPad, Ruins it in the Process

Solar Pebble Powers Africa And The World

The Solar Pebble is a solar powered lamp targeted for use in rural Africa, as a humanitarian product, and at home in the UK as the perfect gift. The LED Solar Pebble is powered by batteries that are charged from the sun via a small, efficient solar panel. It can also charge mobile phones and other devices. The versatile ratchet handle allows the product to be carried and angled when standing or suspended. On the go? Just strap it onto a backpack for daytime charging.

Designer: Adam Robinson for Plus Minus Solar

i.Tech’s SolarVoice Bluetooth headset could save the environment, not your look

Those looking for another excuse to wear a Bluetooth headset all the time just got it: iTech’s $75 Dynamic SolarVoice 908. That awfully long title is applied to a conceptually simple device, a headset with a tiny solar panel on the side rated at five hours of talk time when fully charged. Sadly, though, there’s no mention of how long you’ll need to bask in the sun to get it there. (AC and USB charging are also naturally on offer.) Unlike earlier examples it’s A2DP compliant, so it’ll stream your tunes, and boasts integrated noise cancellation, so it’s perfect for making your drunken barroom conversations a little more garbled.

Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio, Wearables

i.Tech’s SolarVoice Bluetooth headset could save the environment, not your look originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mitsubishi offers solar-powered trucks

Mitsubishi Chemical will harness the power of the sun by using solar cells to power its air conditioning system in trucks so that fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions can be reduced in an effort to keep the earth as green as possible for our next generation. This 10-ton prototype truck will come with two types of solar cells which allows it to achieve a maximum output of 900 watts. Its storage battery enables it to see action regardless of whether it is rainy or cloudy, and calculations have shown that should all of the 1.4 million existing trucks in Japan were replaced by this model, CO2 emissions might eventually be reduced by 1.65 million tons per year!

Permalink: Mitsubishi offers solar-powered trucks from Ubergizmo | Hot: Zune HD Review

ReNu: Modular Solar Panel for iPod Docks and Desk Lamps [Solar]

We’ll suspend our general disbelief for a moment to talk about the Renu, an unbelievable but incredible solar product that’s actually coming to market next year.

The ReNu probably doesn’t work as you’d imagine from looking at the photograph. Sure, you see an iPod dock with speakers, just as you’d expect. But that huge back plate is actually a solar panel/battery combo that you can remove from the dock to hang near a window to store energy. It takes about 9 hours to charge in direct sunlight, or 20 hours to charge in indirect sunlight, to power music for 7-8 hours.

This ReNu panel actually supports a variety of different base units, including a pure iPod/iPhone dock (no speakers included) and an LED desk lamp.

I think the basic idea becomes something like, hang or place a bunch of solar panels in sunlight, then grab power as necessary. But in case you find this ease of use scenario as hard to believe as us, all of the docks and the ReNu panel itself will plug in should the sun’s juice fall short.

The base ReNu panel alone can be preodered now for 2010 availability. It runs $200. The accessories start at $90 and work their way up. [Regen via Treehugger via DVICE]

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