20 students at UW-Madison recently built a solar charger as part of IEEE Student Projects.  The goal of the program is to provide students hands-on experience with practical design skills as many of the students had never before been exposed to electronics assembly tools and techniques.

A solar photovoltaic (PV) charger for smart phones and digital music players was one of several possible student projects.  A Voltaic 3 Watt solar panel provides power to a DC-DC buck-boost converter to regulate output at 5V, the USB standard. The participating students did their own PCB layout and assembly based on a schematic developed by the project officer.

solar panel with USB controller

The chargers worked as intended and charged MP3 players, iPhones, and Android phones, including newer models like the Galaxy S3.  Students even learned how to configure USB pins to get different devices to work (welcome to our world!).

 

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