Solar Tutorial - Making Connections
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You have your solar panel or solar charger and your device that needs charging. Maybe you also have a solar battery pack to go between the two in order to provide consistent power. The question is now how do you make a connection between all these things? Most 12V solar panels come with a basic SLA cigarette socket like the one in your car. Small personal solar chargers are providing a USB port. How do you use these things?
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A very common question I get in my work is "How do I connect my laptop to my solar panel", or "I need to charge my 7.4v camera battery... how do I do this from a solar panel?"
Well, it is not all that difficult, but you are correct to ask the question in the first place. Mis-matching connectors, or voltages, can be damaging to your electronic equipment.
We'll tackle this solar panel connection question in parts. Voltage by voltage.
12V DC devices...
If you have a car adaptor for your device, you can plug it straight into the solar panel's 12V socket. In most cases, solar storage batteries are also designed with 12V sockets. If you have a 12V solar panel and need to charge a USB device that doesn't have a 12V car adaptor, then simply use a USB car adaptor that creates a USB port for your car's dashboard.
5V USB devices...
USB solar panels are designed for plug & play operation with USB devices. They are voltage regulated, meaning that they will always output a USB voltage regardless of what the sun is doing. What varies with sunlight intensity is the amount of charging current that is flowing, which means that the overall power of the panel or solar charger varies with sunlight. Some USB devices require a minimum 1000mA, while most don't care, and will charge from sources as low as 100mA.
The Apple iPhone & iPods have introduced an interesting restriction on connectivity to USB ports, so make sure that the solar charger you choose for Apple devices is confirmed as compatible.
Proprietary phones...
Most phones come with an optional car adaptor - this is the easiest way to connect to a solar panel. However, should you want to connect directly to the phone, you'll have to choose a solar charger like the Solio, or a solar battery pack like the Zap R07-PL2, which comes with a variety of phone connectors.
Digital cameras...
It is a matter of connecting the camera's battery itself, which means choosing a DC camera battery charger to plug directly into your 12V solar panel. Some solar chargers like the Solio are able to drive battery chargers for 3.7V camera batteries too.
Laptops...
As I have outlined in other articles, laptops are an either-or type of battery system. Either it gets the power it needs from the wall charger to operate, or it switches to its internal battery. The laptop power system will not permit the taking of some power from the source and supplementing it with its own battery. Either there is enough power coming from the wall, or it cuts it off. Because portable solar is rarely strong enough to power a laptop directly, we need to use a solar storage battery to take-up the task. A solar storage battery is able to take whatever power is coming from the solar panel, and supplement from its own reserves in order to make-up the power your laptop needs.
For example, if your laptop wants 30 Watts, and your solar panel is generating 10 Watts, then the solar storage battery will pass the 10 Watts through to your laptop, & provide the required additional 20 Watts from its own reserves. How do you connect to your laptop? All laptops are DC (their wall warts convert AC to DC for them), so it is usually only a matter of matching the little physical connector & the voltage. DC car adaptors for laptops are available.
Some solar storage battery packs like the Voltaic Generator are able to provide a variety of voltages & come with adaptor tips for most of the major laptop brands (including Apple MagSafe).
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