blog.scifi.com — How'd you like to never pay for batteries again? And I'm not talking about plain old rechargeable batteries here. You still need to pay for the electricity that charges those. No, I'm talking totally, completely free from here on out...
Feb 22, 2007 View in Crawl 4
Closed AccountFeb 23, 2007
Why is the skin on the actual battery not a solar panel? Seriously having a separate device is pretty archaic. I'd like to just set the battery on my window sill and have it charge. Screw the bulky charger. Marked as spam anyways.
mitrovarrFeb 24, 2007
My personal impressions from using solar chargers:You need direct sunlight, as you said. Outdoors is best if you have a safe place to leave it (backyards and balconies work great.) Otherwise, leave it in front of a window that has light streaming in. Try to make the panel perpendicular to the angle of sunlight during the middle of the day, if you can.The 10 hours estimate is a little pessimistic, but I'd say at least 4-6 for some usable power in 4 AA batteries is the norm. Unlike house chargers, the limiting factor is usually power input (not chemical recharging time) so the number and size of the batteries you attempt to charge at once matters, as does the kind of panel (more expensive panels and larger panels do a faster, better job.)The chargers I've worked with don't do quite as good as a plugged-in battery charger; you get maybe 60-80% normal NiMH capacity, unless you leave the charger out for a really long time. Incidentally, don't leave it out for weeks or anything - these are often unintelligent trickle chargers that will happily charge batteries to death (since intelligent charging circuitry would have trouble with the differing input power levels and use up some of the scarce power.)They are substantially more of a hassle than house chargers, and the power saved is pretty trivial. They're more useful in a travelling/camping capacity than something you would seriously use at home. You'd almost certainly save more power by doing something like improving your house insulation, replacing CRTs with LCDs, or switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs.
blueagave00Feb 24, 2007
I thought it was an MLM scheme or something. Where do I sign up?!
davemandaveFeb 24, 2007
we are one step closer to perpetual energy and motion
postoak99Feb 24, 2007
1373 diggs for this article. Wow, the bar has been set low.
postoak99Feb 24, 2007
Can you un-digg something?! I'm new to this digg thing, but this article is simply a product advertisement.I'm sure the makers of products are using DIGG to up the article count to sell merchandise.
Closed AccountFeb 24, 2007
Actually solar cells themselves can last over 35 years as most roof top panels have 20 to 30 year warranties.Some of the first solar panels made do still work after over 35 years producing 80 to 90% of their original output.I do doubt the batteries will last more then 5 or 6 years before they are finished also if the charger is some cheap made in china deal the case etc will fall apart long before the cells themselves fail.
sirchadlingtonFeb 24, 2007
Anyone notice how if you go to the product page to actually buy the '4 Battery Solar Charger', the last thing in the product description is "Batteries are not included."? What??? No free batteries? But... the title of this story said.... oh never mind. I guess I should stop being a sucker for stories saying anything is free, I'm still waiting on my free Microsoft USB key. ;-)