I don’t really understand why I didn’t try this before. Its simple. its recommended and it works. Have I been too focused on flexibility why simplicity could be the answer? I was speaking to Chris from Euro-Line, an importer of consumer solar products and he highlighted a document that I’d already seen. I took another [...]
In a recent comment here, someone asked why the Lead-Acid battery was needed. Its probably not too clear in the video why I use it so I reproduce my answer (which comes from the best of my knowledge!) here. There are two main problems with charging Li-Ion batteries from Solar panels. Firstly, Li-Ion batteries (in [...]
The latest weather report is still bad. No chance of leaving in the next 10 days unless the weather report is wildly wrong. Its unbelievable! We had the hottest, driest April ever and since then the clouds and rain just won’t go away and summer storms are threatening almost every day. Looking at the sun graph for the last three days [...]
Tonight I’m doing what I’ve been doing most night for the last few months – researching solar power and solar notebook/laptop solutions. Tonight the Google search subject is expeditions. I figured that these guys must have solar computing pretty much sussed by now but I’m struggling to find a solution that can improve on my, [...]
It was an early start yesterday. 0445 rise and bus at 0530. 5 hours later after three trains and another bus I arrived at InterSolar 2007 in Freiburg, Germany hoping to find out how I could improve the UMPC Solar kit at Europe’s biggest solar expo. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much there for consumers at all. It was [...]
To know that there’s a commercially available solar-powered mobile phone gives me a lot of inspiration and encouragement that one day in the near future we’ll be able to design UMPCs with infinite standby capability. You could have a panel and electronics that senses light levels and keeps the device in standby (or even turned on) [...]
Could the weather forecast be any worse? Not only will I get wet and be unable to test the solar kit fully but with an overnight low of 11 degrees, camping wouldn’t be much fun.
I learned a long time ago that WiFi Internet access is not a truly mobile Internet access solution. Its a solution for multi-location access but not a full mobile solution. Fortunately the mobile telephone carriers offer Internet access too and it ‘aint bad!Its going to be the perfect solution for the Solar-UMPC tour. In Europe, [...]
They are expensive and inefficient. Solar panels need to develop a lot before they can provide the average man on the street with enough energy to supplement a worthwhile portion of his energy intake. Mind you, the average man is pretty inefficient. Cars, lighting, heating, cooling. We sap up energy like there’s no need to [...]
I have been looking all over for a lightweight table that I can use on the Solar UMPC tour (which is at risk of being pushed back by another week due to weather and PR organizational activities unfortunately) but I realised at the weekend that I already have a table. Its a heavy bike but it [...]