Category Archives: DIY
Solar Powered Lego Car
You know it is going to be a good day at work when you get a solar-powered Lego Car in the mail. The folks at Play-Well sent it to us after choosing to use our panels for this project (if …
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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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Home Solar Charging Station 2.0
It took a bit too long to setup our first home solar charging station, so we made a number of changes in version 2. This one took us less than ten minutes and is a much cleaner implementation. Like the …
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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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Solar Powered Charging Station
Our products are built to be highly portable, but we’re not always traveling — so how do you get the most out of a small solar power system? I wanted something that was as convenient as plugging into the wall …
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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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EEWeb Interview with Phil Stearns and Jeff Crystal
EEWeb recently interviewed a few of us here at Voltaic. You can read the full interview here to learn more about what we’re working on, what keeps us up at night and our favorite hardware tools. The picture for the …
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Making MagSafes Again…
As we prep to get our solar MacBook chargers back in stock, we got together in our Brooklyn conference room to make some MagSafe adapters. They are not works of art, but they are functional. We splice used MagSafe adapters …
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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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Solar Charger Tutorial – Part 2
Part 2: How much power am I generating? A solar panel does not do anything in isolation. It needs to be connected to something. That something is called a load. A load dissipates power and converts electrical energy to work. …
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