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Small Cabin Forum / Off-Grid Living / Portable Solar power Laptop Station
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Moontreeranch
Member
# Posted: 29 Dec 2009 05:57pm - Edited by: Moontreeranch
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I just got this up and running the other day, to learn more about it you can visit my blog site: http://kmswoodworks.wordpress.com/2009/12/29/solar-laptop-station-up-and-running/


add a little WI-FI and some sun and your good to go.
Portable Laptop station
Portable Laptop station


CabinBuilder
Admin
# Posted: 30 Dec 2009 10:23am
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That's a 10W solar panel. The laptop needs few times more power than that...

Moontreeranch
Member
# Posted: 30 Dec 2009 10:59am - Edited by: Moontreeranch
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That is what the battery is for. At 2.2 A/Hr it is about 10 times the size of the stock 2300mah 3 cell. Which used in conservation mode has been giving me about 3 hours of use. I forgot to mention that the panel has a ten foot lead, so I can set it outside and still stay warm inside;)

The laptop I'm using is an HP mini with a SSD drive. not your typical HDD. Hence no moving parts and much better power management., with the 6 cell battery I can get nearly 5 hours out of it. The 6 cell is a 4800mah, so my 2.2 SLA, is over 4 times as big.

Kithera
Member
# Posted: 30 Dec 2009 04:36pm - Edited by: Kithera
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I agree, most modern netbooks run on 8-12 watts, so a 10 watt panel can give you about a 1 to 1 ratio. Not the best run time, but hardly worthless, expecially in a transportable container.

However, there is a issue with your math. The battery you mentions, 2300mah (or 2.3 aH)(at 7.4V, from the net) is about 17 Watt hours. The 2.2Ah (presumibly at 12 V) is about 26 Watt hours. Plenty for your needs, but not 10 times the size.

By comparison, my Asus 1000ha came with a 7.4V, 6600mah battery stores about 48 Watt hours at the deep cycle battery I use for my small solar set up is 12V and 105 Ah, so about 1260 Watt hours.

SSD over HDD and an Atom or an Arm processor over a conventional laptop makes all the difference.

Moontreeranch
Member
# Posted: 4 Jan 2010 11:23am
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Whoops...I guess my caffeine was not fully integrated in to my brain when I typed that. Kithera does has the numbers...My laptop batteries however are at 11.1 volts so they come in at 26 and 53 watt hrs respectively...I terms of Mass however the SLA is just over two pounds and the Lithium Ion (3 cell) comes in about 6 oz....no wonder, Lithium hold a place so much closer to the top of the periodic chart.

steveqvs
Member
# Posted: 4 Jan 2010 01:53pm
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Nice setup.... Where does one get a battery like that?

Moontreeranch
Member
# Posted: 4 Jan 2010 02:30pm
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I got mine online through budgetbatteries

http://www.budgetbatteries.com/empire-12-volts--22-ah-battery-ups-sla-bb-038830.html

but you can find them at lots of places...I went with the budget guys because they had such a great deal on the shipping..only 5 bucks

Youngster
Member
# Posted: 27 Jun 2011 09:34am
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here's a new solar laptop that Samsung is coming out with...

http://www.mobilemag.com/2011/06/22/samsung%E2%80%99s-solar-powered-notebook-to-land- in-the-usa-in-july/

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