Solar power chrager for my laptop?

[ahhaa]

I just happened on a $5 deal at a garage sale- a solar panel that ran a roof ventilator fan.

The roughly 16" square weatherized solar panel puts out about 14 volts, and puts out enough juice to really spin that 20" fan in full sunlight.

It would be interesting to trickle charge my laptop and I was thinking an easy way would be to run the panel through one of those automotive laptop adapters.

Then I started thinking about grey days and mebbe I oughta have a wet cell in the circuit...

About then, I thought I should ask you guys what's basic, important and protective, without overdoing things.

Bottom line- the laptop should do what calculators have been doing for years, especially as it has generally become an immobile desktop replacement?

[Trippedout]

nice idea look to the past to see the fuiture

[TreeTops]

I'm thinking your laptop will draw too much power for that solar panel to work for you. But maybe worth a try on a cheap, small screen laptop just for fun stuff like emailing. Might be a fun project for you to do and report back to us on your success or failure.

[Trippedout]

how much amps the latop needs to operate and how much your one panel will out put regulated power think that would be an interesting projet to follow yup keep us posted

[yoda313]

Just a side idea here if you had the right adapter you should easily be able to do that for tablets I imagine. Then you'd never have to charge your tablet again.

Though newer high powered tablets might be as demanding as a full laptop - or close to it since tablets don't have optical drives nor the same ports and fans that laptops run.

Anyway do keep us posted if you go anywhere with this.

[redwudz]

The laptop I'm using at the moment, (Asus K53U) has a power supply that puts out 1.5A at 19V. But a lower amperage would still likely charge a laptop battery. Might just take a bit longer. Your panel could probably put out 1.5A DC, though.

As you mentioned, you could put the 14VDC from the panel into a automotive type DC>DC computer power converter that would probably work to get the voltage up high enough for the average LT. I would figure a fair amount of conversion loss, but probably still enough to trickle charge the laptop battery.

Where I'm at, you don't really want sit out in the sun too often with your laptop. (103F today) And if you did, you would probably be better off to use the panel on the attic fan for a cool breeze instead of a charge.

[MOVIEGEEK]

Yeah a 12v to 120v converter should work:
http://www.walmart.com/ip/XOVision-XO440-XO-Vision-DC-to-AC-300W-Power-Inverter/170570...ndingMethod=rr

It has a built-in rectifier for constant voltage and it will shut itself off if the input voltage is too high or too low.

[TreeTops]

His output is 14 volts. Does that mean the rectifier stops then. I think so. So he really needs a power converter that drops the voltage down to 12 volts. Getting too complicated and expensive now I suspect. That is probably the reason you don't see too many solar panels for laptops for sale.

[Nelson37]

Every rig I have read about in actual use to do something similar ALWAYS uses the panel to charge an automotive-type battery, and then uses that to power the charging circuit.

Laptop and other lithium-based batteries need a constant, steady, un-interrupted flow of power for correct charging or they can be damaged or destroyed. Lithium batteries with improper voltage applied can erupt into quite spectacular flames.