Any electricians savvy in solar panels?

Hey all,

I work at festivals n the like throughout the summer, and we never pay for an electricity supply with our pitch, mostly because we're too skint. But we've all got android or iphone mobiles now, and they constantly go flat by the second day.

My first thought was a solar system, I've been tempted to rig up my own, but saw a friend using one of the maplin ones the other day to top up his leisure battery in his camper.

13W Solar Briefcase : Solar Briefcase Generator : Maplin Electronics
(there's a spec sheet under 'downloads' on the left hand side)

We don't have a van at the moment, so no leisure battery either. Now I'm wondering if I was to purchase this... Am I correct in thinking that I could just plug a 'cigarette lighter to usb' plug into the cigarette lighter socket it comes with, switch it to 12v supply and then charge my phone via usb?

I've only just managed to afford a smartphone so I thought I'd seek some advice before accidentally frying it. I assume the ciglighter>usb things have a built in 12v > 5v converter.

I get that it's a bit random posting this Q in here rather than on a techie electricians forum... But it seemed like a potentially daft stoned idea. Plus I know there's a lot of electricity savvy people in here as I had tons of help in setting up my growbox.

Anyway, any help/advice would be appreciated.
All abuse is expected, but rather less appreciated.

Cheers,
mewk.

Just get a 4V Solar Panel, rechargeable batteries USB charger (rip it apart/tear the plastic away and get the PCB out) and a 1N914 diode wire it up in a altoids or some other "box" you can put it in if you need real help hit me up there is also a million and a half instructables on the subject

you dont really want to step down the power its very inefficient might as well just roll with a cheapo 4v solar panel they are real cheap you can do this whole thing for like $10 if you has a soldering iron already

DMTER said:

Just get a 4V Solar Panel, rechargeable batteries USB charger (rip it apart/tear the plastic away and get the PCB out) and a 1N914 diode wire it up in a altoids or some other "box" you can put it in if you need real help hit me up there is also a million and a half instructables on the subject

you dont really want to step down the power its very inefficient might as well just roll with a cheapo 4v solar panel they are real cheap you can do this whole thing for like $10 if you has a soldering iron already

Click to expand...

Hey DMTER,

Appreciate the feedback.. and yeh, I've been looking into all the different versions of the Altoids charger n the Mintyboost etc... I still might put one of those together just as a project and for the sheer portability of it.

I also shoulda explained why I'm considering the one in the link.

In the long-run, we will be getting a van, so I'd be future-proofed for a solar charger for the leisure battery. Also I've seen the charging times on the smaller panels can go into the days to charge up just a phone. I figure if I go for the above kit, I also have the options of running other bits and pieces from it, like a small sound setup for the stall (ipod and portable speakers etc.)

We have a few quid in the business account at the moment, so it'd be an investment, plus it'd work out of the box, rather than having me ghetto it up and running and it looking like a POS.

Have you made one of the altoids versions yourself? If so, roughly how long does it take to charge a smartphone from dead to 100%.

Oh and another thing to keep in mind is that I'm in the UK, and sunshine's a pretty limited resource over here, but the feedback on the linked panels is excellent, even from the UKers in cloudy weather.

I get that stepping down the power would be very inefficient, but surely not as inefficient as taking up packs of 20 AA batteries?