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I remember back in 1989 or so(!), my mom used to work at our summer cabin which had no electricity using a ~1m^2 solar panel, hooked up directly to a car batter
by SamBam 6y ago
I remember back in 1989 or so(!), my mom used to work at our summer cabin which had no electricity using a ~1m^2 solar panel, hooked up directly to a car battery, which was hooked up to a small laptop (a Compaq, I think).
I have no idea if such a setup would be remotely feasible today.
- ctdonath 6y agoOh, it’s feasible. That’s close to what I’m fiddling with (just GoalZero.com products instead of bare car batteries etc). It’s quite workable, but you have to be keenly aware of usage & limitations, and fiddle with stuff often (ex.: coping with passing shadows). Most people are expecting complete reliability - that’s costly.
- ip26 6y agoPanels are better, MPPT are cheaper, and the right laptop uses hardly any power... I would think it should be more feasible in every possible way aside from increased expectations. A Surface Go averages something like 5W, and a 100W array can provide that in virtually all daytime conditions even without aiming.
- hinkley 6y agoAdditionally, the right laptop can use its internal voltage regulator to convert the 12-16 volts from the battery into the internal voltage. One of the secrets of the openwrt community was that those little linksys routers used a 9v power brick but the power regulator was still stable somewhere north of 12v, giving you a lot more options for repeaters or mesh networking.
- CompuHacker 6y ago12V DC 0.5A was typical, stable from 5-30V depending on the exact model.