Monthly Archives: May 2010

Small-scale Solar Trackers

Solar trackers can increase power generated by a solar panel by orienting the panel towards the sun throughout the day. This decreases the amount (and cost) of PV required to generate a given amount of power. While we mainly see …

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Interactive Solar Mobiles

If you find yourself in Philadelphia, the Schuylkill Environmental Center has a pair of interactive “robotic creatures” designed by artist Mark Malmberg. These use our 15 Watt Generator panels to power the creatures motion and language. Each morning, the sun …

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Solar Pump Electric Charging Station

The team at Sol Design Lab in Austin showed off their retro-modern Solar Pump Station at this year’s Maker Faire. The design couples an iconic 1950′s gas pump with solar to create a power station for electric bicycles and electronics. …

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Stunning Solar Art Installation

Simone Giostra & Partners, Jeremy Rotsztain and Rory Nugent have created a “solar powered sun shading media wall system” for the Cooper-Hewitt Museum National Design Triennial. The backside has an array of solar cells that drives the frontside LED display. …

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Estimating Battery Charge Time from Solar

You have a 2 Watt, 6 Volt panel and a 1,000 mAh, 3.7V battery, how long does it take to completely charge? The quick and very wrong answer would be to figure out the Watt hours of the battery (3.7 …

Calculate solar charge time

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Free Bubble Wrap Baggies

All our batteries get shipped to us in these 7″ x 5″ bubble-wrap baggies required for Li-Polymer and Li-Ion batteries. Until now, we’ve thrown them away but we thought someone might be able to re-use them. If you think you …

Get free bubble baggies

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Three Ways to Power an Arduino Off-Grid

We get a lot of questions about how to run an Arduino off of solar panels. We decided to do a bit of testing and came up with three pretty simple ways to run an Arduino even if you aren’t …

Power your Arduino off-grid

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Mounting Small Scale Solar Systems

Have a solar panel and are looking to mount it? You have a lot of options, from the standard ground mounts, roof mounts, pole mounts, to RV mounts and a range of solutions that will secure your panel. We provide …

Mount a small solar panel

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