The Good Life Lab is pre-launching at Maker Faire. It comes out in stores everywhere June 5 and can be preordered on Amazon

Bios

Wendy Tremayne was a creative director in a marketing firm in New York City before moving to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, where she built an off-the-grid oasis in a barren RV park with her partner, Mikey Sklar. She is the founder of the textile repurposing event Swap-O-Rama-Rama, which has spread all over the world. She has written for Craft’s webzine and Make magazine and, with Mikey Sklar, keeps the blog Holy Scrap.

Mikey Sklar is a digital homesteader, open source hardware developer and anti-griddle master. Mikey has worked for Adafruit, Hack-A-Day and Popular Science.

Wendy & Mikey are giving three presentations @ Maker Faire, San Mateo, CA

Meet the Maker Stage
Saturday May 18, 2013 03:30PM – 3:50

Homegrown Village Stage
Sunday May 19, 2013 11:30AM – 12:20

Swap-O-Rama-Rama – Talk and Book Signing
May 20, 2013 03:20PM – 3:40

Tour Schedule

Holy Scrap Blog

Note from Ladyada & pt @ Adafruit: We’ve known Wendy & Mikey for years, we’ve visited their place in Truth or Consequences and it was one of the best experiences ever. They shared a preview of the book with us and it’s inspirational tale for all makers. If you’re at Maker Faire this weekend, go see them and either way, pick up this book!

Arduino Powered 2 Axis Solar Tracker Project

My nearly year-long project starting with a design concept and finishing with a prototype is almost done.  There’s more tweaking to do, but I’m happy to announce this week I’ll be posting several articles on the building of my Solar Outdoor Robot here on Polyideas.  I’ll be posting four different articles, each focusing on a different part of the build.

AS SEEN ON SHOW AND TELL! - Each Saturday night at 9:30pm ET is the electronics show and tell on Google+! Keep an eye on Ladyada’s G+ page and drop a comment on the weekly announcement to show your project on the on-air hangout!

‘energetic energies’ concept by akihisa hirata for panasonic via design boom

Check out this great solar-powered speaker project from Rob Martin, a complete redesign from the one he shared last December! Thingiverse Thing 42586:

This is continuing the design of the previous stereo with some major design changes. The differences between this model and the last are that this one has a larger (3.4W) solar panel that is on a hinge to better capture the sunlight. Due to size constraints, I decided to take out the phone charger for this model. Using the 6600mA lithium ion battery, you will maximize your music playing times. This stereo LOVES to jam out in the sun but is also happy just chillin on your desk. Enjoy!!!

Read more.

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!

Fascinating paper on thin film solar cells available at Nature.com:

Fabrication of thin-film solar cells (TFSCs) on substrates other than Si and glass has been challenging because these nonconventional substrates are not suitable for the current TFSC fabrication processes due to poor surface flatness and low tolerance to high temperature and chemical processing. Here, we report a new peel-and-stick process that circumvents these fabrication challenges by peeling off the fully fabricated TFSCs from the original Si wafer and attaching TFSCs to virtually any substrates regardless of materials, flatness and rigidness. With the peel-and-stick process, we integrated hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) TFSCs on paper, plastics, cell phone and building windows while maintaining the original 7.5% efficiency. The new peel-and-stick process enables further reduction of the cost and weight for TFSCs and endows TFSCs with flexibility and attachability for broader application areas. We believe that the peel-and-stick process can be applied to thin film electronics as well.

Read more.

Grab the paper here

Voltaic Systems Medium 6V 2W & Large 6V 3.4W Solar Panels – These panels come to us from Voltaic Systems, makers of fine solar-powered bags and packs. These are waterproof, scratch resistant, and UV resistant. They use a high efficiency monocrystalline cell. They output 6V at 330 mA & 550 mA via 3.5mm x 1.3mm DC jack connectors. The substrate is an aluminum / plastic composite, specifically designed to be strong and lightweight. They can easily stand up to typical outdoor use including being dropped and leaned on. They’re very high quality and suggested for projects that will be exposed to the outdoors.  Adafruit also carries a smaller 6V 1W panel, and a larger  6V 3.7W panel.

USB / DC / Solar Lithium Ion/Polymer charger – Take those awesome solar panels and put them to work. Make your projects go green this summer with our specialized USB/Solar Lithium Ion Polymer Battery charger! This charger is a very unique design, perfect for outdoor projects, or DIY iPod chargers. We’ve spent over a year testing and tinkering with this charger to come up with a plug and play solution to charging batteries with the sun.

Snap Circuits® Green – Learn about energy sources and how to “think green”. Build over 125 projects and learning about environmentally friendly energy and how electricity works. Includes full-colored manual with over 100 pages and separate educational manual. Features-Hand Crank-Solar Cell-FM Radio-Energy Compartment-Rechargeable Battery-Windmill-Clock and Analog Meter. Compatible with the Snap Circuits family of electronic learning kits.

Solarbotics Zendulum – The Zendulum is a do-it-yourself, simple solderable kit. It features a spherical neodymium rare earth magnet, which emulates Newton’s cradle when infrared irradiation is applied. In English? There’s a magnetic ball that rolls back and forth when powered by a solar cell. Assemble the kit and let it live on your table or windowsill – a simple desk lamp or sunlight can provide enough juice. When powered, the ball will seemingly roll back and forth on it’s own, almost as if it’s throwing the laws of physics and gravity to the wind.

Solarbotics PumLantern Kit – a solar-charged, night-time activated light-pulsing lantern. This kit charges all day from the SCC3733 solar cell, and pumms the four ultra-mega-super-bright LEDs to cast artistic silhouettes against the walls of the lantern. The LEDs themselves are a random grab of white, blue, red, orange and green.

Thames and Kosmos Physics Solar Workshop – Physics Solar Workshop explores the topic of solar energy, focusing on photovoltaic cells. By building 12 models and conducting 30 experiments, you will learn how solar cells transform light into electrical energy, and how motors and mechanical devices can optimize the work done by this energy. You will build different types of vehicles and machines to demonstrate how gears can convert and transform power for different needs.

SHIPPING DEADLINES

Here are your 2012 shipping deadlines for ordering from Adafruit. Please review our shipping section if you have specific questions on how and where we ship worldwide for this holiday season.

UPS ground (USA orders): Place orders by Friday 11am ET – December 14, 2012 – No guarantee that your package will arrive for Christmas.

UPS 3-day (USA orders): Place orders by Wednesday 11am ET – December 19, 2012 – Arrive on 12/24/2012.

UPS 2-day (USA orders): Place orders by Thursday 11am ET – December 20, 2012 – Arrive on 12/24/2012.

UPS overnight (USA orders): Place orders by Friday 11am ET – December 21, 2012 – Arrive on 12/24/2012.

UPS International: Place orders by Monday 11am ET – December 17, 2012. Can take up extra time due to worldwide delays and customs. Should arrive by 12/24/2012 or sooner.

Please note: We do not offer Saturday service for UPS.
Tuesday, Dec. 25, 2012, Christmas, no UPS pickup or delivery service.
Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013, New Year’s Day, no UPS pickup or delivery service.

United States Postal Service, First Class and Priority (USA orders): Place orders by Friday – December 14, 2012 – Arrive by 12/24/2012 or sooner.

USPS First class mail international (International orders): Place orders by Friday – November 23, 2012. Can take up to 30 days ore more with worldwide delays and customs. Should arrive by 12/24/2012 or sooner, but not a trackable service cannot be guaranteed to arrive by 12/24/12.

USPS Express mail international(International orders): Place orders by Friday – December 14, 2012. Can take up to 15 days or more with worldwide delays and customs. Should arrive by 12/24/2012 or sooner.

Gift Certificates are always available at any time.

When in doubt contact us!

Voltaic systems looking to help folks still in need #sandy.

Hi Limor, Phillip,

Glad to hear you guys are back up and running. If you come across any specific individuals that have need for small-scale solar and/or battery power, we are happy to help with deep discounts and or direct donations. Our warehouse in NJ got power back Friday and we are trying to be helpful where we can.
Jeff Crystal
http://www.voltaicsystems.com/

They have deep discounts they can do direct donation as it makes sense. Please write to sandy@voltaicsystems.com for details if you’re still in need of power.

A while ago I backed the Solar Factory campaign on kickstarter, and I’ve been following the Solar Cells, Fuel Cells, & Batteries course from Stanford, so this article from Spectra-Physics really interested me when I came across it: Manufacturing c-Si Solar Cells with Lasers.  It’s a very accessible overview of some manufacturing options to produce solar cells, though it’s obviously still a growing field with a lot of new, interesting research going on.

The Almost Useless Machine from tinkerlog

Leveraging solar power for mindless, non-urgent tasks, FTW (For The Woodcutting) …

(Via tinkerlog.)

We all know, we should use more renewable energy. Here is my contribution. Use solar power if you want to cut 20mm wooden rods. And plan ahead because it may take a while.

Updated Tutorial: USB, DC & Solar Lipoly Charger @ The Adafruit Learning System.

Make your projects to go green this summer with our specialized USB/Solar Lithium Ion Polymer Battery charger! This charger is a very unique design, perfect for outdoor projects, or DIY iPod chargers. We’ve spent over a year testing and tinkering with this charger to come up with a plug and play solution to charging batteries with the sun and we’re really pleased with what we ended up with.

Learn more.

spherical glass solar energy generator by rawlemon.

german born, barcelona-based architect andré broessel has sent us images of his latest development of a spherical glass solar energy generator. the project uses the advantageous strategy of implementing a ball lens and specific geometrical structure to improve energy efficiency by 35%. in contrast to its traditional photo-voltaic ‘dual-axis’ counterparts, the device incorporates a fully rotational weatherproof natural optical tracking device that is adequate for functioning on inclined surfaces and curtain walls, empowering any building surface. the new solar generating concept has capabilities that concentrate diffused daylight or moonlight for a more effective site context application.

Educators who want to introduce their students to the wonders of solar power should check out our Solar Skill Badge Requirements Document.  Also be sure to check out or great Solar Skill Badge, which happens to be a working solar panel button.  Here are some great solar powered projects that will help inspire educators and students alike.  We have a bunch of great solar products available here.

Raspberry Pi Solar Data Logger

From the Adafruit Forums: Custom Solar LiPo Charger

Solar Temperature Badge Project

USB, DC & Solar Lipoly charger tutorial

Custom Solar Minty Project

Adafruit for Educators! #backtoschool

Please visit our educator’s section to learn more about:

• Adafruit volume discounts and programs for educators, discounts galore!
• Adafruit electronic kits, products, Arduino & Raspberry Pi products for education, we have’em!
• Adafruit products and Arduino for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). Used in schools!
• The Adafruit System, the best way to learn electronics!
• Adafruit iron-on “skill badges” / patches and partners, celebrate skills building!
• Resources for educators, our picks for educators!
• Adafruit for educators content on Adafruit.com, daily posts for educators!
• Circuit Playground – iPad/iPhone App For Educators, volume discounts via Apple’s edu program!
• Adafruit copyright permission for educators, educators can use them, hassle-free!

Visit.

Brian Dorey.com | Raspberry Pi Solar Data Logger via HaD. Brian writes -

The Raspberry Pi solar data logger project is now live and is the latest version of our previous data logging systems using Arduino and Android + IOIO board projects.

The data is used on a custom reporting website onhome.briandorey.com and also on Android and iPad tablet apps.

The Raspberry Pi is used as a data processing and uploading system which pulls data from the following sensors and then uploads to a web server via HTTP GET.

Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit, be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products.

Tommy Mitchell’s solar cellphone charger in Bryant Park in Manhattan. Once charged, he says, it can operate for a whole week without sun. – NYTimes.com.

Pacing around his Brooklyn apartment, Tommy Mitchell paused to eye his machine with frustration. On top was an 85-watt solar panel that he realized he had just installed upside down.

A solar-powered cellphone charger, it looks like an oversize white iPad on stilts, with eight charging wires sprouting like tentacles from the middle. Once charged, the machine, which sits on a huge battery, can run a whole week without sun, he said.

Adafruit customer calibur010011 showed off his newest creation on the forums.  He packed our Solar Lithium Ion/Polymer charger and MintyBoost into a nice custom laser cut enclosure.

I finally completed my project to use Adafruit Industries mintyboost with their li-poly solar-charger into one neat enclosure. I even built and designed a status circuit to fit the case easily activated with a button push.

USB / DC / Solar Lithium Ion/Polymer charger – v1.0. Make your projects to go green this summer with our specialized USB/Solar Lithium Ion Polymer Battery charger! This charger is a very unique design, perfect for outdoor projects, or DIY iPod chargers. We’ve spent over a year testing and tinkering with this charger to come up with a plug and play solution to charging batteries with the sun and we’re really pleased with what we ended up with.

Easy to use! Pick up any of our many 3.7V/4.2V LiIon batteries, and a 6V solar panel. Plug the battery into the BATT port using a 2-pin JST cable and the solar panel into the DC jack using a 2.1mm terminal block adapter. Put the solar panel outside (and keep the battery out of the sun, it needs to be kept shaded!) to start charging. You can power another project like a Mintyboost at the same time by connecting to the LOAD output port.

Buy one here!

In Pictures: The World’s Largest Solar Thermal Power Plant – Technology Review.

The Ivanpah solar thermal plant uses concentric circles of mirrors that will focus sunlight onto a central tower, generating high temperatures to produce steam. The plant will feature three towers, each with its own set of mirrors. The first unit, in the foreground, is the nearest to completion. By February of this year, workers had begun to install mirrors, which can be seen in the upper left and right sides of the field.

This is one annual report that may actually be fun to read.

Solar energy is the key area of business at Austria Solar: Serviceplan developed a surprising and attention-grabbing annual report for the Vienna-based organisation that not only puts solar energy to paper, but also positions Austria Solar as a consistently innovative industry organisation in the Austrian solar sector. Thanks to a special printing process, the content of the individual pages only becomes visible when sunlight falls on it.

The report was sent at the beginning of the year to the members of the Austrian solar organisation in addition to various representatives from business and politics.

Connecting Students with the Environment Using Open Source Hardware @ Next Level Labs. Brendan writes -

Although miles of suburban sprawl surrounded us, complex environmental processes were constantly occurring all around us. They were just a little difficult to see. I decided to shift the focus of the course from simply “What is the environment?” to, “How do we study our environment?” Using parts primarily from Adafruit Industries, I made an environmental sensor. Temperature, humidity, light level, and ozone concentration data were collected using the DHT22 sensor, a photo cell, and Futurlec’s MQ131 gas sensor. A Boarduino and Xbee got our sensors talking to our school server and a 6V solar panel powered the beast. Everything fit nicely into an Otterbox and some Sugru provided stability and weatherproofing.

Adafruit academy list updated – solar!.

Solar cells, or photovoltaics, are made out of photosensitive semiconductors that convert light energy into electricity in a process known as the photoelectric effect. This process describes the interaction between light energy and the materials that make up the individual cell. Depending on how the cell is configured, conversion efficiencies can exceed 30%!

The solar requirements document can be used by educators to help teach students about solar power. Once completing, the students get a solar badge

All of my requirements sheets are geared toward high school environments. If you require either easier or harder requirements feel free to make a request! My objective on the requirements sheet is to have the students familiar enough with the component that they can use it effectively in their designs and troubleshoot problems when they arise. Please feel free to modify the sheet to fit your needs.

Enjoy!

Solar – Requirements Sheet

Today is Earth Day! Here are some fun Earth projects to celebrate the planet. Post yours up in the comments! Above: The Weather Balloon Project.

Adafruit customer “goes to space”

Interview with Jeff Crystal and Phillip Stearns @ EEWeb

USB, DC & Solar Lipoly charger tutorial

Solar Temperature Badge

Solar Testing and Tech Support at Voltaic Systems / Adafruit Jobs Board.

Voltaic Systems designs portable power systems to power electronics: from cell phones to laptops (and even Minty Boosts). We’re looking for someone to help with a wide range of technical responsibilities.

Solar Temperature Badge @ The Custom Geek.

Adafruit now carries Solar Badges! It’s like free outdoor 5V batteries forever! I picked up a few of these and have been toying around what I’m going to do with them. They pump out 5V at 40mA for all of your portable power needs. The other huge plus about these is that the cell is a 2″ round badge that comes with a pin. This makes your power supply wearable to show the world your project!  As described in the video above, this badge measures temperature, displays a color scale from red to blue, and flashes digits, displayed as numbered pulses for the temperature. It also has a RGB ‘rainbow’ mode for bling as well as constant color changing temperature display. It was a fun little project and you can pick up the Solar Badge, Perma-Proto Boards, TMP36 Temp Sensor, Tilt Switch, Push Button, RGB LED, and even the ATmega328 at Adafruit.

Previously there was a very popular Instructable on making your own “Solar MintyBoost” – before you needed to get parts from various places, now you can get them all in one spot – at the Adafruit shop! So – if you want to make solar MintyBoost, here’s how — (read more).

NEW PRODUCT – Round Solar Panel Skill Badge – 5V / 40mA. This skill badge is a self-fulfilling one! Normally you would get the badge after the project is done, but in this case, the badge can be part of the project! The solar panel is epoxied into a round disc 55mm diameter (about 2.2 inches), its rugged and looks cool besides. We include a sticky foam pin back you can attach to the back of the panel to mount it onto a backpack, jacket or sash.

Of course, it also is a perfectly functional solar panel. There are 10 slivers of solar cell inside for a 5V rated voltage in sun. The output is about 40mA when in bright sun, less in shade or cloudy weather. You can use this to power small, low power projects with a small low power microcontroller or chip and maybe an LED.

The epoxy coating makes this panel rugged and waterproof on the front. The back has points for soldering. If you want to make this fully waterproof you’ll need to dab waterproof epoxy onto the back to cover the solder points once you’ve attached wires.

• 10 x Polycrystaline solar cells
• Rated output: 5V @ 40mA
• 55mm diameter x 3mm thick
• Solder points on the back

In stock and shipping now!

Why the Clean Tech Boom Went Bust @ WIRED Magazine via freaklabs -

In 2005, VC investment in clean tech measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The following year, it ballooned to $1.75 billion, according to the National Venture Capital Association. By 2008, the year after Doerr’s speech, it had leaped to $4.1 billion. And the federal government followed. Through a mix of loans, subsidies, and tax breaks, it directed roughly $44.5 billion into the sector between late 2009 and late 2011. Avarice, altruism, and policy had aligned to fuel a spectacular boom.
‘
Anyone who has heard the name Solyndra knows how this all panned out. Due to a confluence of factors—including fluctuating silicon prices, newly cheap natural gas, the 2008 financial crisis, China’s ascendant solar industry, and certain technological realities—the clean-tech bubble has burst, leaving us with a traditional energy infrastructure still overwhelmingly reliant on fossil fuels. The fallout has hit almost every niche in the clean-tech sector—wind, biofuels, electric cars, and fuel cells—but none more dramatically than solar.

Read more…

This is a “round” 5v 40ma solar panel (our solar “badge” you could say) we’ll be talking about this on the show-and-tell and/or ASK AN ENGINEER on saturday night… amongst many many other new things. it’s 2″ x 2″ … 50 x 50 mm.

Jim writes -

I’ve mentioned before the importance of having the MintyBoost available during a major power outage last October in New England. This allowed me to have my toys working. But since the outage extended for a long time it was obvious I was going to go through a lot of batteries. Thus, the need to upgrade to the solar version.

Attached is a photo of my finished upgrade. It is quite a neat installation. I love it. Thanks Lady Ada.

Solar PV Monitoring System / OpenEnergyMonitor. Glyn writes -

Here is the documentation for a solar PV monitoring system that’s been developed as part of the OpenEnergyMonitor project. It’s based on Arduino and is fully open-source; hardware, firmware and web application.

The system monitors both generation and consumption and gives the user a clear indication of when their household electricity demands are being met by their solar PV array (green light) or when their not (red light). The wireless display also shows how much electricity is currently being exported or imported. Monitoring data is also posted on-line by a wireless
web-connected base-station to our powerful open-source web-application emoncms.

This development is part of the actively on-going OpenEnergyMonitor project to design and build open-source tools for the monitoring, visualization and control of energy.

BACK IN STOCK! USB / DC / Solar Lithium Ion/Polymer charger – v1.0. Make your projects to go green this summer with our specialized USB/Solar Lithium Ion Polymer Battery charger! This charger is a very unique design, perfect for outdoor projects, or DIY iPod chargers. We’ve spent over a year testing and tinkering with this charger to come up with a plug and play solution to charging batteries with the sun and we’re really pleased with what we ended up with.

Easy to use! Pick up any of our many 3.7V/4.2V LiIon batteries, and a 6V solar panel. Plug the battery into the BATT port using a 2-pin JST cable and the solar panel into the DC jack using a 2.1mm terminal block adapter. Put the solar panel outside (and keep the battery out of the sun, it needs to be kept shaded!) to start charging. You can power another project like a Mintyboost at the same time by connecting to the LOAD output port

Battery and MintyBoost not included.

Our carefully designed charger is designed specifically for solar charging, and will automatically draw the most current possible from the panel in any light condition!

This isn’t a true MPPT (max power point tracker), but has similar performance. Our detailed tutorial on how to use this charger includes a design document explaining how it all works. Please read all of the documentation before purchasing.

Comes with an assembled and tested charger board, a large capacitor (you will need to solder it in however you would like it to sit), a JST 2-pin cable for connecting up a battery or load, and for a limited time a bonus 2.1mm adapter cable that will convert the small 1.4mm jack to a 2.1mm jack.

• 3.7V/4.2V Lithium Ion or Lithium Polymer battery charger
• Charge with 5-6V DC, USB or solar panel!
• Too dark out? Use a USB mini-B cable or a 5V DC adapter
• Automatic charging current tracking for high efficiency use of any wattage solar panel
• Use any 5-6V solar panel (6V seems to work best)
• Three color indicator LEDs - Power good, Charging and Done
• Low Battery Indicator (fixed at 3.1V) with LED output
• Set for 500mA max charge rate, can be adjusted from 50mA up to 1A by soldering in a resistor
• Will always draw the most current possible from a solar cell – up to the max charge rate!
• Smart load sharing automatically uses the input power when available, to keep battery from constantly charging/discharging
• Temperature monitoring of battery by soldering in a 10K NTC thermistor (not included) – suggested for outdoor projects where the battery may get hot (50°C) or cold (0°C).

Again, this isn’t a true MPPT (max power point tracker), but has similar performance. Our detailed tutorial on how to use this charger includes a design document explaining how it all works and why we designed this product.

In STOCK and shipping now!

NEW PRODUCT – Large 6V 3.2W Solar panel, 3.2 Watt. These panels come to us from Voltaic Systems, makers of fine solar-powered bags and packs. These are waterproof, scratch resistant, and UV resistant. They use a high efficiency monocrystalline cell. They output 6V at 530 mA via 3.5mm x 1.3mm DC jack connector – a nice upgrade to the 2W panels we have been carrying. The substrate is an aluminum / plastic composite, specifically designed to be strong and lightweight. They can easily stand up to typical outdoor use including being dropped and leaned on. They’re very high quality and suggested for projects that will be exposed to the outdoors.

New! These now comes with 4 plastic mounting screws which makes it easy to attach the panel, even to fabric!

• Size: 4.4″ x 8.4″ / 110mm x 215mm
• Weight: 3 ounces / 90 grams
• Cell type: Monocrystaline
• Cell efficiency: 17%+

In stock and shipping now!

How Open Source Hardware is Kick-Starting Kickstarter!. Phil has a massive article this week on MAKE…

Imagine waking up and seeing your design for a circuit being used in a product by someone who never contacted you to ask if it was okay. You will not get any payment for their usage of your design, they’ve raised over $31,000 dollars, and they’re selling something you worked really hard on. You have no control over what someone does with something you made. Is this a nightmare? Perhaps for some, but this is actually a dream come true for others. And it’s what this week’s Soapbox is about: Open-source hardware kick-starting Kickstarters!

Read more. The project / interview featured is based on the open-source hardware solar charger from Adafruit.

Interview with Jeff Crystal – COO and Phillip Stearns, Lead Product Development and Testing Technician; Voltaic Systems!

Medium 6V 2W Solar panel 2.0 Watt. These panels come to us from Voltaic Systems, makers of fine solar-powered bags and packs. These are waterproof, scratch resistant, and UV resistant. They use a high efficiency monocrystalline cell. They output 6V at 330 mA via 3.5mm x 1.3mm DC jack connector. The substrate is an aluminum / plastic composite, specifically designed to be strong and lightweight. They can easily stand up to typical outdoor use including being dropped and leaned on. They’re very high quality and suggested for projects that will be exposed to the outdoors.

New! These now comes with 4 plastic mounting screws which makes it easy to attach the panel, even to fabric!

• Size: 4.4″ x 5.4″ / 110mm x 140mm
• Weight: 4 ounces / 120 grams
• Cell type: Monocrystaline
• Cell efficiency: 17%+

To connect, we suggest a 3.8mm OD/1.3mm ID DC jack

For some nifty ideas on what to do with your solar panels, check out Voltaic’s DIY page

In stock and shipping immediately.

Solar minty lives via the forums! Ransomhall writes -

I finally stopped playing around with all the parts (monitoring setup above) and wrapped up the 6V 3.7W panel, Minty, and solar lipo charger in a nice fluorescent blue acrylic housing. Along with a 6600 mAh battery, I can now charge the heck out of USB powered gadgets. See http://www.ransomhall.com/Pages/solbooster.aspx for more details of this build. I am going to create an Instructable for this and enter it in the Epilog laser cutter contest. I’ll post links when that is ready.

images not to scale

BACK IN STOCK – USB / DC / Solar Lithium Ion/Polymer charger, goes GREAT with… Large 6V 3.7W Solar Panel…

Brian writes -

Power’s out due to tropical storm Irene, but there’s still sunlight out. So, I’m using a solar panel, an Adafruit adjustable breadboard power supply, and a USB hub to power my Sprint Overdrive.

It is interesting to compare the proposed solar heaters, revolving to face the sun, with a project of, supposedly, the year 2660, which appeared twenty-four years ago in a novel written by the Editor of this magazine, and entitled “Ralph 124C 41 + .”

Pretty interesting guesses from 1935 (and even before that!)…

Solar Light from Ikea: Sunnan @ Voltaic Systems.

At Voltaic, we’re in the process of designing our own solar light and are constantly on the lookout for small scale solar lighting products that have made their way to market to see what we like and might do differently. We brought a Sunnan light home from the Brooklyn IKEA to have a look at what’s inside.

This is really cool to see, Voltaic is doing an evaluation and giving useful suggestions on how they’d improve Ikea’s solar lamp.

NEW PRODUCT – Large 6V 3.7W Solar Panel. Harness even more power from the sun with this nice big solar panel. We had these custom made for us when customers let us know they needed more than what our 2W panel could provide. This panel is a 12-cell (6V) assembly mounted onto a fiberglass PCB and covered with PET plastic which protects the cells without reducing efficiency. The back has two soldering spots to easily connect and is conformal coated. The panel is thus fairly strong and lightweight but isn’t completely waterproof (since you’ll have the exposed soldering on the back. However if you place this in a box or mount it so the back is encased, it’ll be just fine.

We connected this up to our solar lipo charger and got over 550 mA to charge the battery with on a fairly sunny NYC day.

In stock and shipping now.

Ransomhall writes -

Thanks to this nice tutorial http://ladyada.net/make/solarlogger/ I’ve done a substantial upgrade! Now I can monitor and save the following data:
Voltage: Panel, Battery, Load
Current: Panel and soon battery (waiting on parts)
Temperature: battery, in case it gets too hot.

Adafruit featured in July issue of microSOLUTIONS, page 9 – solar!

USB / DC / Solar Lithium Ion/Polymer charger – v1.0. Make your projects to go green this summer with our specialized USB/Solar Lithium Ion Polymer Battery charger! This charger is a very unique design, perfect for outdoor projects, or DIY iPod chargers. We’ve spent over a year testing and tinkering with this charger to come up with a plug and play solution to charging batteries with the sun and we’re really pleased with what we ended up with.

Easy to use! Pick up any of our many 3.7V/4.2V LiIon batteries, and a 6V solar panel. Plug the battery into the BATT port using a 2-pin JST cable and the solar panel into the DC jack using a 2.1mm terminal block adapter. Put the solar panel outside (and keep the battery out of the sun, it needs to be kept shaded!) to start charging. You can power another project like a Mintyboost at the same time by connecting to the LOAD output port

Battery and MintyBoost not included.

Our carefully designed charger is designed specifically for solar charging, and will automatically draw the most current possible from the panel in any light condition!

This isn’t a true MPPT (max power point tracker), but has similar performance. Our detailed tutorial on how to use this charger includes a design document explaining how it all works. Please read all of the documentation before purchasing.

Comes with an assembled and tested charger board, a large capacitor (you will need to solder it in however you would like it to sit), a JST 2-pin cable for connecting up a battery or load, and for a limited time a bonus 2.1mm adapter cable that will convert the small 1.4mm jack to a 2.1mm jack.

• 3.7V/4.2V Lithium Ion or Lithium Polymer battery charger
• Charge with 5-6V DC, USB or solar panel!
• Too dark out? Use a USB mini-B cable or a 5V DC adapter
• Automatic charging current tracking for high efficiency use of any wattage solar panel
• Use any 5-6V solar panel (6V seems to work best)
• Three color indicator LEDs - Power good, Charging and Done
• Low Battery Indicator (fixed at 3.1V) with LED output
• Set for 500mA max charge rate, can be adjusted from 50mA up to 1A by soldering in a resistor
• Will always draw the most current possible from a solar cell – up to the max charge rate!
• Smart load sharing automatically uses the input power when available, to keep battery from constantly charging/discharging
• Temperature monitoring of battery by soldering in a 10K NTC thermistor (not included) – suggested for outdoor projects where the battery may get hot (50°C) or cold (0°C).

Again, this isn’t a true MPPT (max power point tracker), but has similar performance. Our detailed tutorial on how to use this charger includes a design document explaining how it all works and why we designed this product.

Choosing USB Pin Voltages for iPhones and iPads @ Voltaic Systems

We continually make minor tweaks to the USB output of our batteries to make sure we charge as many devices as possible. We pay particular attention to Apple products and now, with the introduction of the iPad, it has become slightly more complicated to have a one size fits all solution. This post tells you the Voltage on each pin of our USB batteries, which is hopefully useful if you’re trying to make your own USB charger.

There are lots of different threads Apple charging, but we’re going to focus here on USB pin Voltages as this was the variable we were adjusting in this round of production.

Andyx writes -

This is a work in progress project which uses a Solar charging MintyBoost to power an Arduino with a Proto Screw Shield on it. Attached is a 2X16 LCD using the I2C Backpack, a DHT22 Temperature and Humidity Sensor, a Waterproof DS18B20 Sensor and a 5V analog PH Probe/Adapter.

USB / DC / Solar Lithium Ion/Polymer charger – v1.0. Make your projects to go green this summer with our specialized USB/Solar Lithium Ion Polymer Battery charger! This charger is a very unique design, perfect for outdoor projects, or DIY iPod chargers. We’ve spent over a year testing and tinkering with this charger to come up with a plug and play solution to charging batteries with the sun and we’re really pleased with what we ended up with.

Easy to use! Pick up any of our many 3.7V/4.2V LiIon batteries, and a 6V solar panel. Plug the battery into the BATT port using a 2-pin JST cable and the solar panel into the DC jack using a 2.1mm terminal block adapter. Put the solar panel outside (and keep the battery out of the sun, it needs to be kept shaded!) to start charging. You can power another project like a Mintyboost at the same time by connecting to the LOAD output port

Battery and MintyBoost not included.

Our carefully designed charger is designed specifically for solar charging, and will automatically draw the most current possible from the panel in any light condition!

This isn’t a true MPPT (max power point tracker), but has similar performance. Our detailed tutorial on how to use this charger includes a design document explaining how it all works. Please read all of the documentation before purchasing.

Comes with an assembled and tested charger board, a large capacitor (you will need to solder it in however you would like it to sit), a JST 2-pin cable for connecting up a battery or load, and for a limited time a bonus 2.1mm adapter cable that will convert the small 1.4mm jack to a 2.1mm jack.

• 3.7V/4.2V Lithium Ion or Lithium Polymer battery charger
• Charge with 5-6V DC, USB or solar panel!
• Too dark out? Use a USB mini-B cable or a 5V DC adapter
• Automatic charging current tracking for high efficiency use of any wattage solar panel
• Use any 5-6V solar panel (6V seems to work best)
• Three color indicator LEDs - Power good, Charging and Done
• Low Battery Indicator (fixed at 3.1V) with LED output
• Set for 500mA max charge rate, can be adjusted from 50mA up to 1A by soldering in a resistor
• Will always draw the most current possible from a solar cell – up to the max charge rate!
• Smart load sharing automatically uses the input power when available, to keep battery from constantly charging/discharging
• Temperature monitoring of battery by soldering in a 10K NTC thermistor (not included) – suggested for outdoor projects where the battery may get hot (50°C) or cold (0°C).

Again, this isn’t a true MPPT (max power point tracker), but has similar performance. Our detailed tutorial on how to use this charger includes a design document explaining how it all works and why we designed this product.

In stock and shipping now!

Here are some customer photos already!

On the 4th of July – Independence Day Holiday Adafruit’s online store will be open 24/7 as usual. For online store customers who place orders there will not be a not postal pick up or UPS pick up on July 4th, any order placed after July 2nd will ship on July 5th.

In the United States, Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 (image here).

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Heavy stuff! Have a happy and safe July 4th everyone! We will be outside testing our new solar charger!

NEW PRODUCT – USB / DC / Solar Lithium Ion/Polymer charger – v1.0. Make your projects to go green this summer with our specialized USB/Solar Lithium Ion Polymer Battery charger! This charger is a very unique design, perfect for outdoor projects, or DIY iPod chargers. We’ve spent over a year testing and tinkering with this charger to come up with a plug and play solution to charging batteries with the sun and we’re really pleased with what we ended up with.

Easy to use! Pick up any of our many 3.7V/4.2V LiIon batteries, and a 6V solar panel. Plug the battery into the BATT port using a 2-pin JST cable and the solar panel into the DC jack using a 2.1mm terminal block adapter. Put the solar panel outside (and keep the battery out of the sun, it needs to be kept shaded!) to start charging. You can power another project like a Mintyboost at the same time by connecting to the LOAD output port

Battery and MintyBoost not included.

Our carefully designed charger is designed specifically for solar charging, and will automatically draw the most current possible from the panel in any light condition!

This isn’t a true MPPT (max power point tracker), but has similar performance. Our detailed tutorial on how to use this charger includes a design document explaining how it all works. Please read all of the documentation before purchasing.

Comes with an assembled and tested charger board, a large capacitor (you will need to solder it in however you would like it to sit), a JST 2-pin cable for connecting up a battery or load, and for a limited time a bonus 2.1mm adapter cable that will convert the small 1.4mm jack to a 2.1mm jack.

• 3.7V/4.2V Lithium Ion or Lithium Polymer battery charger
• Charge with 5-6V DC, USB or solar panel!
• Too dark out? Use a USB mini-B cable or a 5V DC adapter
• Automatic charging current tracking for high efficiency use of any wattage solar panel
• Use any 5-6V solar panel (6V seems to work best)
• Three color indicator LEDs - Power good, Charging and Done
• Low Battery Indicator (fixed at 3.1V) with LED output
• Set for 500mA max charge rate, can be adjusted from 50mA up to 1A by soldering in a resistor
• Will always draw the most current possible from a solar cell – up to the max charge rate!
• Smart load sharing automatically uses the input power when available, to keep battery from constantly charging/discharging
• Temperature monitoring of battery by soldering in a 10K NTC thermistor (not included) – suggested for outdoor projects where the battery may get hot (50°C) or cold (0°C).

Again, this isn’t a true MPPT (max power point tracker), but has similar performance. Our detailed tutorial on how to use this charger includes a design document explaining how it all works and why we designed this product.

In stock and shipping now!