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“How to make a solar power generator for less than U$S 50”

 

 

         I made a small but very useful solar power generator really cheap. It has only two fundamental parts: the solar panel, and the battery. I used a 12 V   1.8 watts solar panel (U$S 30 in Radio Shack), and a 7.2 V   850 mAh (taken of a remote control car).

         It is very simple to build it, and can give you hours of fun and use!

 

MATERIALS:

·        Small solar panel (if you use one bigger than 5 watts, you will need a charge controller; I did not)

·        Small battery (you can take it from a RC car)

·        Any low wattage DC appliance (you may need a resistor depending of the voltage)

·        A switch

·        Wire

 

PROCEDURE:

1.                             Connect the solar panel’s wires to the battery’s terminals. Connect “+” with “+”, and “–“ with “-“.

2.                            Attach, from the “+” battery, a wire to one part of the switch.

3.                            Attach another wire, from the other part of the switch, to the “+” terminal of the DC appliance.

4.                            Attach one more cable from the “-“ battery terminal, to the “-“ DC appliance terminal.

 

 

With the materials I used, it takes about 3:30 hours to charge a drained battery in peak power, and about 7:00 hours, on half sunlight. For the appliance, I used a fan (the ones of the computers) for the DC appliance.

 

 

 

Schematic

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