Saturday, February 9, 2013

Photovoltaic Cellphone Charger

I've got this solar panel that was being discarded as part of a dock light.  It's encased in acrylic. I've removed the light and battery that had expired and now I have this little PV that puts out about 5.7V DC in full sunlight.


So I was thinking, could I use this to charge my phone or camera when I'm on the water?  Could I cause my lithium battery device to explode?  The camera battery is rated at 3.7V.  Would I have to charge another battery first that I'd then charge the phone with?

So I checked the Google and found this person has a nice little unit. I guess I can just cannibalize a phone charger and solder it to leads on this little PV, and then I'll have a field charger for my phone. If I got some plugs, I could interchange other cameras and phones.

I welcome any feedback on this, especially if you think it's a bad idea. Thanks in advance.

UPDATE: This device failed to charge a cellphone.  More recently I purchased a Levin cellphone charger off of the shelf.  It's panel also doesn't charge the battery but I can plug it into a 110V wall outlet and then get 2 or 3 charges on my iPhone 6.



4 comments:

James Douglass said...

That sounds like an excellent, "radio shack mad scientist" kind of project. Let us know how it turns out!

Paul Richardson said...

Just ordered a new phone charger so I can cannibalize the old one. I'm thinking broader like maybe some kind of plug where I can charge other stuff. I'll keep you posted!

Paul Richardson said...

THIS didn't work so well. Well.... maybe I need to wait for the season of more insolence.

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