Posted: 2/7/2009 1:20:01 PM EDT
| I'm no technical wiz and know very little about Solar power. I was wondering if there is any way to make a solar powered thing something the size of a laptop that could be used to power and charge AC devices like a laptop, phone gps ect. I thought it could be a usefully end of the world tool plus a fun thing to try and build. Am I nuts? Does solar power not make any where enough power to do that? Any input? |
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I have a Brunton Solaroll which is pretty cool. It is a DC felxible solar panel. It can produce 14 watts at 12V (about 1.1 amps) at peak. It's cool for gadgets, charging small batteries or a trickle charge for a larger 12V btty.
The 14 watt is expensive. I got an obscenely good deal on it through REI and also used a 20% coupon. linkeroo ETA: Consider this when you think about solar 
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http://www.sunelco.com/sunelcostore/productinfo.aspx?productid=27&categoryid=0&startpage=1
I don't know if you want car portable or back pack portable but these unisolar panels work even with bullet holes in them, if you use a group 24-27 deep cycle battery you can even skip the charge controler use a blocking diode and monitor it with a cheap meter and disconect it when the battery reads 14 volts, a few hours of over charge @ 4 amps will not hurt a 125 AH battery. Add a 300 watt inverter for cell/laptop chargeing or 800-1000 watt and you can run a small microwave [ not so good for the battery but do-able]. This could be easily set up in the morning and brought in at night. |
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This might be what you're looking for since you mentioned that you wanted it to be laptop sized.
This is as portable and ready to use as it gets. 
Xantrex solar powerpack |