Author Archives: Phillip Stearns
Solar Charger Tutorial – Part 4 Battery Protection
Part 4: How do you protect the battery? The goal of a charge circuit is to protect both the battery and your device. If you don’t have charge protection, you can damage the cells on a battery or cause a …
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Solar Buddha Machine
For those of you who don’t already know about the FM3 Buddha Machine, here’s the scoop: The Buddha Machine is a small plastic box that plays meditative music composed by Christiaan Virant and Zhang Jian. (source: fm3buddhamachine.com/) The device is …
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Using AC inverters with the V60 battery
We did some testing with a small inverter to see how it would work with our V60 universal laptop battery. This setup allows you to plug some regular “wall plugs” into a solar setup like you would in your home. …
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Tablet Charging Update
Image by LGEPR on flickr. Tablet charging has been a top priority here at Voltaic. With the release of our V60 battery and updates to V11 and V39 batteries, it’s time to bring you up to speed on the compatibility …
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Making the Array or OffGrid into a Solar Camera Bag
We tested two camera inserts to see how they fit in our Array Solar Laptop Charger and OffGrid Solar Backpack. Here’s the short video: We tested the Domke 414 ($57 from B&H) which fits firmly inside the Array and safely …
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DIY Solar Lamp
Here’s a guide to building a USB powered LED lamp compatible with Voltaic Systems products. This is a quick and easy way to convert the solar energy we’ve stored in our Voltaic Systems batteries into light. We’ve used ours when …
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Charging the Kindle Fire from Solar
The Kindle Fire, Amazon’s answer to the Barnes and Noble Nook Color, is a compact 7” color tablet device that occupies a middle ground between full fledged tablet PC and eReader. There are loads of product reviews out there, but …
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DIY Renewable Electricity Class
Voltaic Systems employee, Phillip Stearns will be teaching a 2-day class in DIY Renewable Electricity at 3rd Ward in Brooklyn, NY. Students will learn how to charge AA batteries using our 2-Watt solar panels, as well as from bike driven …
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Mod the IKEA Sunnan to Charge an iPad2
A while back we covered the nifty Sunnan solar powered desk lamp from IKEA, highlighting its usefulness while making note of some of the things we would like to change. In that list of possible improvements we mentioned increasing the …
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Solar Charger Tutorial – Part 3
Part 3: How (and why) do I store power? Sunlight is inconsistent and often nonexistent (think nightime) so storing power is important in many applications. In addition, many electronics are expecting a constant, specific Voltage with an ample power reserve. …
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