The ultimate aim is to have a new set of equipment for a second solar computing tour. On the last one, in 2007, I had a mobile PC, a lead-acid battery and a 25W panel. Total cost was around 1500 Euros and the weight and size was too big for travelling. If the Changers equipment works we’ll have a much smaller, lower-cost solution with a built-in data logging capability. There’s the fun aspect of the Changers community too which could encourage the user and help spread helpful information, tips and tricks.

My post and video about Changers at CeBit is here.

Changers is on Facebook and Twitter. Website here. Let me know if you’re already part of the Changers community. (My Changers profile here.)

The consumer-focused solar charging sector has been damaged in recent years by the influx of cheap China-manufacture red solar chargers that really don’t do what they say. This solution from Changers.com is in a different league. I had the pleasure of speaking to the founders today and  got a bit of tech talk in. What I found out got me excited about doing another solar computing tour because the intelligent power pack is one of the best i’ve seen. I want to pair it with the Lenovo Lynx PC. Clovertrail is perfect for travel computing and the Lynx even charges via micro USB. In theory, one 4hr charging session will charge about 60% of the Lenovo’s internal battery for about 4hrs of work. 1hr charging for 1hr computing is a real groundbreaking achievement, if it works.

Here’s a video of the solution from CeBIT 2013. I’ll be following up with a view to seeing how far I can push it. Price: 150 Euro for the kit.

Changers is on Facebook and Twitter. Website here. Let me know if you’re already part of the Changers community.

Spotted in my local hardware supermarket today was a surprisingly cheap 12v solar kit.

The 15w solid panel was packaged with a regulator / converter that had various output voltages, two led lighting solutions and a 7ah 12v battery. The 220v inverter shown in the image was not included in the kit.

The price? A reasonable €149

While the build quality didn’t look that great, this would still be a good purchase for emergency use.

The price also indicates that some mass manufacturing is starting for the consumer market now. Certainly the Summer 2011 edition of a local electronics catalogue shows way more solutions and products than just a few years ago.

Have you seen more consumer solar equipment for sale this year?

There’s another Samsung netbook out there though that has taken the alternative energy idea one step further. Meet the NC215S with integrated solar panel.

The NC215S is for African, Turkish, Slovakian, Russian and other markets initially and although there’s no indication of the size of the power of the panel, I would put it at a maximum 4W which, given a 75% charge efficiency, would be enough to meet the claim that 2 hours in the sun can provide one hour of operation. These devices operate in about 8-10W of power.

Update: This is coming to the US market too for a suggested retail price of $399.  Liliputing have the details.

It’s interesting that Samsung have chosen to go with an Intel platform (N455 or N570 Atom)with rotating hard drive and traditional LED-backlit screen for this because there are certainly better Intel platforms and better storage and screen technologies that could be used. I wonder whether this is mainly a play for a low-emissions computing vote. Still, it’s a start and it means that at least one major computer manufacturer isn’t scared to take a risk with a new design and, come Oaktrail, this could be improved very easily.

The N215S will launch in August for around $500, a $200 premium over a basic netbook which, incidentally, is enough to buy a 24W solar panel and a long cable that could keep you in the shade while the device, and a few others, charge. ;-)

Via netbooknews. Source: Samsung

In a recent test I ran a tablet connected to the internet at an average 200 mW. That’s screen off, wifi connected and polling in the background to update emails, location, twitter and other processes. It’s nothing really surprising because most of the tablets are built on smartphone technology. With the screen on though, usage will jump about 5-7x and if you push the CPU and add 3G you can reach 20X that power drain. Still, running everything in 4W is still impressive. It’s just a shame that 20-30% of the in-use power and about 70% of the idle power when the screen is on is used by the screen itself. LED-backlit technology is getting better but only in small amounts. What if you could use ambient light for the screen, just as we do when we read a paper book?

Pixel Qi is one company that are developing these ‘transflective’ screen technologies and in an interesting interview I saw today, Mary Lou Jepsen, the founder, talks about using solar energy to power a low power tablet with a Pixel Qi screen. By combining transflective screen technology with a low power tablet, you’re talking about 1W of power in idle, screen-on situations.

Unfortunately, the 1W panel that Mary Lou shows, isn’t going to be enough.

More after the video.

There are a number of issues here.

1 – No one leaves their devices in the sun unless it is in a secure place. It is usually recommended that devices are not left in the sun at all.
2 – There are, on average during a summer period, about 4 ‘solar’ hours per day in central Europe, rising to about 7, year-long towards the equator. That’s because the sun is only at its strongest for the midday period and clouds and shadows will also impact the overall efficiency.
3 – Battery charging isn’t a simple matter of trickling some energy into a batttery cell. Most Li-Ion battery circuits only trigger charge at a certain level of voltage which again, reduces the number of hours per day that a solar panel can be used
4 – Charging circuitry is innefficient. You can lose 20% of the engery through the charging electronics.

Don’t forget that we tend to be awake and using our devices during sunlight hours and we tend to do that away from the sun so the possibilities for on-device charging are seriously limited.

While a 1W panel sounds like it might be enough, to charge the average tablet (with a 15Wh battery) you’d need to sit the device in the midday sun every day for about a week for a complete charge.
Yes, Pixel Qi screen technology reduces the battery requirements but even with a battery half the size, the time taken and the akwardness would make the process unusable for all but the most niche of cases and even in those cases (off-the-grid, emerging countries) a solar charging station for replaceable batteries is, in nearly all cases, a better idea.

Of course there are some scenarios where this would work today and at some point in the future the cross-over point will be reached where it makes sense to build solar cells into consumer devices. Pixel Qi are definately doing their bit to accelerate this but there’s still a way to go before we see solar panels built into tablets.

As for battery life, the Tab is returning a minimum of 7 hrs (that’s a hugely busy day on it) and a maximum of 2 days. The battery inside is 10wh which is 1/5th of the battery on a 7hr netbook. With a charging voltage of 5v at around 1500mah it’s something that can be run from 500gm of power pack for a week. Wherever you are in the world, are you going to be away from a source of mains power for that long? The only problem is that the charger is fairly unique in delivering a quick-charge via up to 2A over a USB port. You will have to search long and hard for a solar-powered or battery pack solution to support that. The only option is to trickle charge it from a standard USB port overnight. It really does take that long but it might work for you. With a 420gm weight, no moving parts, a Gorilla Glass hardened screen and a good range of cases and covers available, I won’t hesitate to recommend it to travellers.

If you really need Windows though, you might want to wait a few months. I saw a some new ultra-mobile PCs based on the Intel Oaktrail platform at CES in Jan and the efficiency is looking good. Samsung will be launching the TX100 (aka Gloria and PC7 Series) in March and the message from Samsung is that you’ll be getting 9hrs battery life in under 1kg with an SSD, 2GB of RAM. It’s the perfect setup for some ultra-mobile and ultra low power computing. The screen is somewhat exposed as it’s got a tablet/sliding keyboard form factor but that’s the only thing that causes me any concern. Expect something in the region of 45wh on the battery capacity though. This is no smartphone!

Finally though, we’ve seen some indicators that more smart-books could launch in 2011. Honeycomb, the tablet-oriented version of the Android operating system will support multicore ARM architecture and should stimulate developers to make more pro-oriented apps. Expect the pricing of these ‘HD’ apps to be more than you’re used to on a smartphone but don’t expect anything near the prices you get charged on Windows. Devices like the 7hr, 800gm, Toshiba AC100 would come of age if Honeycomb got ported to them and then things would get interesting. The AC100 has a 15wh battery and costs around 200 euro!

2011 will be a great year for low power computing and for those that have occasional access to mains power, maybe that solar requirement will drop away as we move within the 10wh / day requirement. Off-the-power-grid computing will be easier than ever.

I hope to do some off-the-grid travelling during the summer and of course, ill report here if I find anything of interest in the meantime.

[This post written in portrait/thumbing mode on the Samsung Galaxy Tab using the WordPress application.]

The first device is the €299 Toshiba AC100, a laptop-style device with a 10” screen. It runs a relatively powerful Tegra 2 ARM-based CPU core and and the Android operating system. It’s also available in a 3G version for about 70 Euros more. The device weighs 800gm, a lot less than netbooks, and has a great keyboard. There’s not much internal storage but it will take SD cards for up to 32GB external storage. It plays HD movies and comes with some productivity software. Unfortunately there’s a problem with standby. The device tends to come out of standby and leave the screen on which drains the battery and leaves you with an empty device the next time you go to use it. It you ignore using standby mode, you can get about 7 hours screen-on, Wifi-on usage out of the device which is pretty good considering it only has a 24hr battery. The AC100 will get an upgrade to Android 2.2 soon

The second device I’ve been using is one with a 7” screen. Again it runs Android and this time it’s a tablet form factor. It’s the Samsung Galaxy Tab. It’s a lot more expensive than the AC100 (600 Euro) but it fitted with GPS, 3G, a reasonable camera/video camera and has 12GB of usable internal storage. It’s also a phone! (EU version) With a 15Wh battery inside (5v charging) it will run for 6-7hrs in a connected, screen-on state. In terms of electronic engineering it’s one of the most efficient high-end ARM-based devices I’ve tested and a fantasticly lightweight converged product. A keyboard dock is soon to be available too so it will be interesting to try this out as a ‘PC’

600 Euro is a lot of money though so how about 400 Euro for something very similar. The Viewsonic Viewpad 7 is much the same as the Galaxy Tab but uses an older processor. I’d argue that the price-point is more suitable for mobile usage and I bet that the price will go to 350 Euro very soon. I have had some hands-on but hope to get some real testing underway soon. This one has USB On-The-Go support too so you can plug in a normal keyboard/mouse. It’s looking like a great travel companion at a great price. Yes, it’s also a phone! I’ll be doing testing on this iver the next few weeks at Carrypad

What’s Intel up to?

Intel are still moving forward and could come back into the ultra-mobile PC picture in 2011 with two new platforms and a new operating system. Moorestown and Oaktrail are new platforms that support extended standby modes and power control that can turn off various parts of a chip when it’s not being used. Unfortunately, Windows won’t be able to take advantage of the new hardware but a new operating system called MeeGo will. MeeGo is a core operating system being developed by Intel and Nokia for both ARM and Intel platforms. We haven’t seen any new devices yet but we’re expecting something very soon and given that it’s based on a desktop operating system we should see a productivity slant and connectivity that out-does the Android/ARM-based offerings I mentioned above. It could be worth waiting to see what turns up before buying a solution for ultra low-power and ultra-mobile usage.

Solving the screen problem

As the processing platform tends to a 1W-average envelope, there’s one component that’s starting to look more and more of a problem. The screen. 5 years ago we had CCFL-backlit screens which took 2-3W in a 7-inch panel. Today we have LED-backlit screens and OLED screens that, in normal use, can take 1-2W in the same size. This needs to drop significantly in the next 2 years. We’re starting to see some interesting transflective technologies coming through that use ambient light and offer a greyscale image in sunlight. It’s perfect for outdoor use.  One device that will offer this as an option is the Notion Ink Adam.

Pricing is not clear at the moment but if will be a 10 inch device running Android and offering the Pixel Qi display technology as an option. In outdoor use, battery life could double.In indoor use, there’ won’t be much difference because the backlight will need to be used as in a normal LED-backlit display. If the build quality is good on this one and if Android develops to include large-screen applications and a better browser, mouse and keyboard support, the Adam could be a serious option. Android 2.3 could help this along and if it launches soon (rumors say November) then we’re likely to see it in products before the new year. By Mid 2011, Android could be quite the well-developed large-screen operating system.

Battery Technology.

Just don’t get me started. In the last 4 years we’ve seen close to zero advances in Li-Ion / Li-Poly technology and nothing new to challenge them. All I can say is that I really don’t expect any major breakthroughs in 2011.

As mobile technology and mobile operating systems really come together we can start to see some major advances in usability and battery life and if the screen problem is sorted out, a real boost to outdoor mobility.

Its been a few months since I’ve posted anything to the solar pc blog but having just watched a BBC World program about e.Quinox and their energy kiosks I felt it was time.
The program is available on YouTube and worth a watch. What struck me was that the two most talked about advantages of the energy kiosks were for providing light and mobile phone charging! I bet that low-cost, low power mobile computing will come into scope soon too.

From the e.quinox website:

The ‘Energy Kiosk’ is a solar charging station, where the local population can charge their batteries for a small fee. At home they can use the energy for lighting, phone charging and to power a radio.

Ill be taking a closer look at this to find out more about their technical solution to see if I can apply it to my own work. I do my solar projects for fun but these guys are doing it for the perfect reason – to improve peoples lives. If this blog raises just a little bit of awareness it will make my project more worthwhile.

So why do they need your help? It’s because there entered the World Challenge. If you vote for them and they win, they get money to develop the project further. You can vote for them here.

They are also on Twitter

One of the 45,000 solar panels that are currently being distributed

Originally uploaded by Christoph Derndorfer

Awesome.
Christoph Derndorfer (@random_musings on Twitter, http://christoph-d.blogspot.com/) is out in Lima with the OLPC project and he’s just posted this image on Flickr.

45,000 of these panels are currently being distributed.

I’m hoping Christoph has the time to post a bit more about the panels. Power rating is probably in the 7-12W range by the looks of it. I wonder how much they’re costing. The 24W panel I bought cost over 300 Euro!

I talked yesterday about my testing with the Viliv S10 and my 24w solar panel. Today I’ve implemented the solution as my desktop PC.

Previously (for the last 5 months) I had been using a Fujitsu U820 UMPC as my desktop. It was running Windows XP on a Intel Atom 1.6 CPU. The Viliv S10 is running Windows 7 Home Starter on the same Atom 1.6 CPU. Both solutions use a fast SSD. You can see that I have it set up to drive an external monitor, mouse and keyboard but I’m still using the screen on the S10 as an extended monitor. With the extended screen, Windows 7, quieter operation and a better USB solution (the USB bus on the U820 would often reset causing a keyboard and mouse lock-up) this is a better working solution than I had before.

Cont’d…

The 24W solar panel is only powering the screen but at 0937 this morning I was surprised to see it charging the running S10. At that rate I have the opportunity to get 6 hours charging out of this July sun meaning a full charge per day; enough for 8 hours usage in this set-up. The problem is that I lose the sun behind a tree and the side of the house at about 1300 hrs. I need to get the panel on the roof to solve that issue.

I’ve ordered a Turnigy watt-meter that I’ll use to measure power utilization so check back for results some time in August because in a few days I’m off on holiday!

Note on my PC usage: I work mainly within the browser using cloud-based applications like Gmail, Google Docs and iTweet. I use Windows Live writer as my main publishing tool and sometimes use Tweetdeck for some Twitter work. It’s a simple set-up that needs very little processing power.