UPDATE: This unit is now on its way to Congo for field testing.

Taylan and I were hanging out at the house, and felt like we needed to get some work done on the solar charger project.

So, I brought down my panel and charge controller, and Chris Shannon's big gell cell battery.

These charge controllers and panels have been sponsored by Global Solar Energy Corp in Tucson, Arizona, USA.

So I was trolling through data on my phone today while uploading videos for the THS Seismometer and I found this old video of Akiba talking about the LED solar lantern BEFORE it was the Tohoku Lantern!

First video ever!

Turns out it was still in my youtube account, so here it is:

Inspired by Chris Harrington's solar-on-the-farm and bothered by the fact we need the air-con most in the middle of the day when Tepco says doing it is most like to cause blackouts, I decided to try and do a little rooftop balcony solar experiment of my own.

Huge shout-out to Chris for helping source all the pieces on yahoo auctions, and advising in detail on the right areas to over-spec or plan for expansion on etc.

This project will provide solar panels and charging systems for popular cell phones used in Japan.
It is our contention that power will continue to a troublesome issue for refugees in the disaster zone. Especially over the summer, when it is predicted that there will be many power shortages and rolling blackouts.

Currently, there are many areas still "off grid" which can benefit from a varied selection of solar powered options.

There are two sub projects:

Project 1:
We have already received a shipment of 500 USB charger panels from Konarka (http://www.Konarka.com).

Hi all!
In conjunction with some discussion that Richard, Akiba and I had on Tuesday night, and in preparation for projects like InakaNET and the 10/10 event;

I started playing with the solar panels my brother gave me from his (soon to be quitting) company.

On a cloudy day, sitting on the floor in my apartment near the glass door, I measured about 7 volts output.