Portable Solar Panels

February 25th, 2010

portable-solar-panels

Portable panels practically shout the word FREEDOM. Whether your an outdoors type of guy like the one in the above photo or a traveling business person, you have to recognize the advantages of being able to plug into the sun rather than search for an electrical outlet in a place that is strange and new.

There are many products that claim to provide a solution for people who want to power their portable electronics using solar power. Whenever a new one comes on the market, the popular technology bloggers are quick ot review them. They are almost always found wanting. They can fail in three different ways. They can be too expensive. They can be too big to be portable in any practical way. They can fall short on the amount of power that they generate. Some products that are aggressively marketed actually fail on all three counts. Different reviewers will always have different standards by which they measure portable solar panels. I have seen a review where the blogger was quite happy to have a gadget that would just barely charge an iPod over the course of a full day of bright sunlight. I think it would be great to have a serviceable solar panel as part of the emergency kit in you car. Even if it was only good enough to partially charge your mobile phone, it could potentially save your life.

Building your own portable solution allows you to set and meet your own standards for cost, portability and power output. You may have to consider some compromises. A common strategy to maximize portability is to attach the solar panels to storage items that you would be taking with you anyway. Backpacks, laptop cases, handbags and more can be retrofitted with today’s flexible solar cells. If you want more power, you can build a purpose specific bike trailer.

If you are planning to use the panels to charge one or more DC powered devices, your system may not require a battery or an inverter.

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