DIY shade finder tool takes the tedium out of solar surveys

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[Steven Dufresne] does a lot of tinkering with solar-powered applications, a hobby which can be very time consuming if done right. One process he carries out whenever building a solar installation is creating a sun chart to determine how much (or little) sun the target area will get.

The process requires [Steven] to take elevation and Azimuth measurements of many … Read the rest

Video series shows how to build your own solar-charged R/C lawnmower

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As winter is officially upon us, we’re pretty sure that the last thing most of you are thinking about is mowing your lawn. We would argue that it’s actually the ideal time to do so – that is, if you are interested in automating the process a bit.

[Robert Smith] has spent a lot of time thinking about his lawnRead the rest

Upgrading a solar lamp to charge an iPad

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[Phillip] and the crew at Voltaic Systems took a look at the Sunnan solar powered desk lamp from IKEA a while back, and while they thought it was pretty useful, there were definitely some things they wanted to change.

First on their list of revisions was to increase the capacity of the stock battery pack. Taking the lamp apart and … Read the rest

Solar charger for Occupy Boston

As soon as the team at Revolt Labs heard Occupy Wall Street was coming to Boston, they decided to pick up their soldering irons in support of the throngs of protestors. They came up with a Solar charging USB box to keep those cell phones and digital cameras charged.

The case came direct from an Army surplus store. Originally, the … Read the rest

Sustainability Hacks: Solar panels built from old windows and factory rejects

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The crew over at The Tech Junkies recently took another look at solar power and thought that the pricing had come down enough for them to consider powering their entire shop via the sun. Cheaper or not, they still didn’t want to pay retail for solar panels, so they decided to build their own instead.

They scoured eBay for a … Read the rest

Solar-powered RepRap prints even when the power is out

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[Mark] wrote in to share a little creation that he is calling the first solar-powered 3D printer in existence. While we can’t say that we totally agree with him on that title, we will give him the benefit of the doubt that this is the first solar-powered RepRap we have seen thus far.

You might remember [Mark] from his previous Read the rest

Building a solar power heliostat

[Frits] has been working on an solar panel heliostat (in Dutch, check out the translated page here).

The heliostat uses a small PICAXE to control the motor, along with an DS1307 real-time clock to make sure the motors start at dawn. Instead of using optical encoders or magnetic sensors, the angle of the heliostat is measure with a pot … Read the rest