Upgrading A Solar Lamp To Charge An IPad

ikea_sunnan_upgrade

[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 unscrewing the pack’s lid revealed a set of 3 AA cells, which they swapped out for higher-capacity models with more than double the watt-hour rating.

A beefed up battery is a good start, but the lamp’s tiny solar panel has no hope of topping off the batteries outside of Death Valley. To ensure that they get a nice full charge, a small jack was wired into to the battery pack, allowing the group to connect any size external solar panel they pleased.

Finally, [Phillip] and Co. wanted the ability to charge an iPad2 from the lamp’s battery pack. They hacked in a small USB connector and a slightly modified MintyBoost board to provide a little extra juice to their tablet.

While they are still testing the modifications, they say that everything is working nicely, citing that the extra battery capacity and charging abilities are a great addition.

16 thoughts on “Upgrading A Solar Lamp To Charge An IPad

  1. Wait.

    So they took a solar powered lamp, replaced the batteries, replaced the solar panel with an external unit, added a boost converter and a USB port.

    Why did they need the solar powered lamp in the first place? All they did was use it as a battery case.

  2. Actually, this is a good idea.
    I just bought a Kindle Fire.
    I’m thinking (now), of getting some decent solar cells, and mounting them to the back of it.
    When you’re not using it, just flip it over and it’ll charge up a bit.
    Put some good cells out there, and you should be able to get a decent charge rate. Not as good as a power line, but I don’t expect to be using it more than not, so it should work out for me.

    Nice little self-contained unit. I like it.

  3. The trick is having a solar panel than can juice enough amps to do the charging. There aren’t many. So the need of the battery that will, later, charge the mobile device.
    I tried to skip the battery but not enough juice from my panel. :(

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