A group of engineering students at University of Michigan designed their own solar charger using our 2 Watt solar panels. They have a couple ideas in here that we like.
The first is to mount the panels and phones inside a Pelican Case to keep everything secure. We love the toughness of Pelican Cases and Otter Boxes here and have discussed this internally in the past. We would actually like to mold the panel onto the outside of the case. The panels can withstand the abuse, especially if you leave a plastic rim a few mm above the panels. You can see the angle adjuster on the case so that you can orient the panels as close to 90 degrees to the sun as possible.

The second idea is to use NiMH batteries for power storage (these look like Alkalines in the picture though). NiMH batteries are pretty inexpensive and can be recycled and replaced when they’ve reached the end of their life cycle. You don’t have to dispose of any electronics, just the battery. They placed 2 sets of four AA in parallel to enable charging of multiple devices at a time. They are going to need a bit more circuitry in there to prevent overcharge, short circuit as well as a boost circuit to bring the Voltage up to USB spec. We output at the high end of USB spec Voltage in order to charge the widest range of phones.
Thanks to the team for sharing and for taking on solar chargers.

2 Responses

  1. Christina Thompson

    I am very much enamored of Pelican Cases, too. My current laptop bag is a Pelican Case, and several of my fellow Soldiers also use Pelican cases, and it’s kept my netbook safe through back-to-back Army deployments in Iraq. I also very much like Voltaic bags, and have had one for years. It think if Voltaic can partner with Pelican in making a Pelican laptop bag with the solar panels mounted on the outside, keeping the electronics inside charged, you would have an instant hit!

    Another market niche I think you would find an easy sell might be for Iron Butt motorcyclists. If you could integrate the solar panels into the lid of a motorcycle top case, that’s a perfect place to charge up electronics for bikers.

    Reply
  2. Bio

    Hi

    i am currently designing a solar charger for the cellphone and will like more details on your design.What was your maximum output current and how did you manage to achive it?Is your system power efficient and how was that achieved.

    I think the answers to the above questions will help me with my design.

    Reply

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