Running a Laptop on Solar Power

It's official! Powderdust has gone green. Yes indeed, ladies and gentlemen, an 80 Watt solar panel has been installed by my good self and is now taking care of charging:

• 2 x Laptops (Macbook and IBM) 0% - 100%
• 2 x Mobile Phones
• 1 x Bluetooth Headset
• 1 x 10 Megapixel Casio Camera Battery
• 1 x Canon 400D SLR Camera
• 1 x Sony DV Video Camera Battery
• 1 x iPod Classic
• 1 x iPod Shuffle (via Macbook)
• 1 x Tom Tom One Sat Nav
• 2 x House Phones (top-up to full when down on 30%)
• 16 x AA Batteries
• 4 x AAA Batteries
• 1 x Battery Drill
And to top it all of 1.5 - 2hrs x 11 Watt Lamp every other night.



I do believe I could draw more power from the system - watch this space or suscribe to the blog to find out more.

You may be asking yourself a few questions. Like where in the world is powderdust? How is the power stored? What kit is used? Well its quite easy actually. Here is a list of kit used:

• Solar Panel (80 Watts, 12V) Mounted on shed roof facing south
• 4 x 12v, 26 Amp Hour Batteries wired in parallel
• 1 x 10 Amp charge controller, bought off eBay
• 1 x 12V-240V at 300 Watts inverter, again, bought off eBay
• 25 Metres of cable to run from shed to kitchen



Wire it all up, switch it all on, and hey presto! Free power. And this is all in rainy old England.

Feel free if you want to ask any more questions. And if you are going to use powderdust's design services, its good to know a percentage of energy used is from renewable resources.

posted by powderdust @ 17:52:00