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General Science / How can I construct an indoor solar phone charger?
« on: 03/03/2015 18:15:17 »
Hi all,
I'm attempting to build a small solar-powered (or, rather, fluorescent-light-powered) indoor battery-charging system to be used as an occasional phone/tablet charger. Currently, my setup includes an 8W 12v solar panel (repurposed from a boat battery-maintenance system), a 5000mAh Ni-MH 12v battery and 12v-5v USB output (for phone/tablet charging), all connected to a solar charge controller. As the ambient light indoors is insufficient to get the battery charging off the panel (I'm reading about 2v output with average indoor light conditions), I'm wondering if I can't include a step-up transformer/voltage booster between the panel and the charge controller to ensure that, whatever the output of the panel, it's charging the battery. If not, does anyone have any suggestions regarding how to accomplish this with off-the-shelf parts? It probably doesn't need to be said at this point, but I'm just an amateur garage-tinkerer (I'm an attorney by day) with a limited technical background, so if you could more or less respond as you would to a child I would really appreciate it. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide. Cheers.
I'm attempting to build a small solar-powered (or, rather, fluorescent-light-powered) indoor battery-charging system to be used as an occasional phone/tablet charger. Currently, my setup includes an 8W 12v solar panel (repurposed from a boat battery-maintenance system), a 5000mAh Ni-MH 12v battery and 12v-5v USB output (for phone/tablet charging), all connected to a solar charge controller. As the ambient light indoors is insufficient to get the battery charging off the panel (I'm reading about 2v output with average indoor light conditions), I'm wondering if I can't include a step-up transformer/voltage booster between the panel and the charge controller to ensure that, whatever the output of the panel, it's charging the battery. If not, does anyone have any suggestions regarding how to accomplish this with off-the-shelf parts? It probably doesn't need to be said at this point, but I'm just an amateur garage-tinkerer (I'm an attorney by day) with a limited technical background, so if you could more or less respond as you would to a child I would really appreciate it. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide. Cheers.