Mar/090
Solar Charger from Aigo
I checked this one out at CeBIT 2009 earlier this month and it looked very interesting. Tidy design too.
The problem is, as with many of these consumer devices, they dont even list the capacity of the cells which indicates that this one is more for the MP3 brigade rather than for UMPCs or MIDs. Shame.
Update: More pics including a shot of the specs, at Marcel Nuernberger’s Flickr page.
Dec/084
Taking the iPhone off the power grid.
Kevin Tofel, an eco-friendly blogger at the excellent mobile-focused website JKOnTheRun has bought himself a solar-powered battery-pack and plans to run his iPhone for as long as he can without connecting it to the mains power.
The charger is a Solio Classic with a 6wh capacity cell. The iPhone has a 5wh cell.
At first glance it seems like too much of a challenge. Looking at the solar cell area and comparing it to my own 25W panel which measures about 1m squared tells me that this device is going to have a tiny sun-capture capability. Looking at the FAQ on the device gives a few clues:
It takes 8-10 hours to fully charge a Solio from the sun. With peak charging times between 10am and 2pm, it takes a minimum of 2 days to fully charge a Solio.
8-10 hours for a 6Wh battery is under 1W of solar capture, under ideal conditions.
It’s winter in Philadelphia right now so I guess we’re looking at an average 60% sun-power through the peak hours which means it will take about 3 average days to charge the solar unit. Taking into account that about 20% power will be lost on cross-charging I’d estimate that Kevin is going to struggle to get a full charge every three days.
2.5G Smartphones like the first-gen iPhone that Kevin has, can easily take 2W of power when driven hard. So if Kevin isn’t careful. he’s going to be out of power in the first day but it looks like he’s done his research and is well on top of the challenge…
The strategies…let me go two days without charging my iPhone however, and that gives me two days to capture sunlight with the Solio. I guess if we have a three-day rainstorm, I’m out of luck.
The interesting part of the experiment will be to see what type of usage Kevin gets out of the device. Will it be voice only? Will he be able to use regular email polling as he’s planning. Will he use it as a mobile internet device or just as a voice phone?
It’s clear that this isn’t the best way to save energy given that the $75 Euro initial costs that could power an iPhone non-stop for about 40 years (*1) but these sort of experiments, this sort of publicity and the resulting discussion is exactly what’s needed to stimulate development and improvement of consumer solar solutions.
I don’t get many readers on this blog but from the responses I’ve had over the last year or so I know that many of the readers here will have already thought about this. Perhaps you’ve already done it? If so, what devices did you use and how did it / does it work out for you?
Track Kevin’s progress at JKOnTheRun.
(*1) Assuming the iPone takes a (very high) average drain of 1W, $75 would buy something in the order of 500kwh of household power. With an AC adaptor efficiency of 80%, the $75 over 45 years of iPhone usage.
Oct/083
Emergency Computing for the Masses.
When I did the Solar UMPC tour in 2007, it was an expensive job pulling together all the equipment. Foldable solar panels and ultra mobile computers were specialist items and difficult to find. The UMPC alone cost over 1100 Euro and had to be ordered through a specialist. Fortunately, Intel are starting to deliver on their promise of consumer-focused, highly efficient Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs)and it’s looking great for anyone wanting to power a real PC from the sun.
What was 1KG and cost 1110 Euro one year ago is now less than half the weight, takes half the power and cost a lot lot less. Within 12 months, the price will be down to 50% of what it was a year ago bringing mobile computing to the masses. Take the Aigo MID (see info below) It’s a full Linux-based PC with keyboard and screen, storage, usb, a camera, wifi, bluetooth and will even be available soon with built-in 3G. Its just 350gm in weight and having looked in detail at test results and asked owners about the battery life, its clear that it’s running in less than 4W of power meaning you can last twice as long on the same amount of stored power or reduce the size of the (expensive) solar panel and power storage. A huge step forward.
Survival with the Smallest and Most Efficient.
Recently, I have been thinking more about short-term emergency supplies. I usually keep a stock of foodstuffs and water in my cellar along with a radio, small gas stove and a radio but I really think a mobile computer should be part of my survival kit, even if it’s just for day-to-day ‘emergencies.’ From being able to compute when your ISP has problems to being able to walk into the middle of a city without power or communications and instantly set up a WiFi hotsopt or Bluetooth hotspot with a simple, self-contained web-server offering emergency information. From being able to move away from an emergency area with your computer with scans of your important documents to being able to send an e-mail greeting to your mother when you forgot to send a card for her birthday (arguably one of the worst disaster scenarios possible!)
In times of disaster, you need to earn money too. As a pro-blogger (UMPCPortal) I would instantly lose 100% of my income if the Internet went down but by having an emergency Internet ’station’ I’d have a lot of possibilities. Can you imagine how much bartering power you would have if your were one of the only people left in your area with a working PC and a 3G connection that could send and receive emergency SMS messages from the cellular radio system!
In times of comfort and stability it sounds almost extreme to be thinking about such scenarios but in the western world, we live in a just-in-time economy. Like the weather, everything could change in 48hrs. Considering your electronic storage, communications and computing as part of your survival kit is is something many people will be doing and having the lightest and most efficient kit is obviously the best way to go. Thank goodness for Mobile Internet Devices!
Solar UMPC Tip of the moment: (click on the links for information from the UMPCPortal database)
Aigo P8860 - One of the first consumer-focused Mobile Internet Devices based on Intel’s Atom processor and Moblin, Linux-based operating system. Currently available by import. Average power drain (in-use) under 4W. 5V DC input. Micro-SD port. Wifi, Bluetooth and USB port about to take external peripherals. Also available in France as the Mi PC through the carrier SFR and expected to be launched under the Gigabyte brand soon as the M528.
Is anyone reading this considering a mobile PC as an essential item in their emergency kit? Is anyone even considering some form of fallback scenario?
Jul/086
Ah! The smell of burning electronics.
It looks like this test is over now. The TabletKiosk MP3400 blew up on me.
This morning, everything was going well. The MP3400 was charging well from the Sunlinq…
…but later in the day, when I was charging the Q1 Ultra from the MP3400, it all went wrong. The MP3400 overheated in a big way…
I had left the Q1 Ultra connected to the MP3400 in the boot/trunk of the car while I went out to pick up some beer and when I came back the unit was incredibly hot. When I took it out of it’s case, it was clear that it had overheated as the plastic on the inside of the case had melted onto the battery. Part of the grille had melted too.
I left it to cool for 20 minutes and it looked like it was working again but it didn’t last long. Its completely dead now. No lights, nothing!
Lesson learned. Don’t try and use the MP3400 in 32 degrees heat inside the protective case, inside the boot of a car.
Fortunately the Q1 Ultra is still working although i’m down to 60 minutes battery now. There’s no way to charge it up until I get home on Saturday evening. Here ends another Solar-UMPC test. Now where’s that beer I bought….
Jun/081
Voltaic Generator Solar Bag. Enough power for a UMPC.
SelectSolar in the UK have just emailed me to let me know that Voltaic have an improved Solar Bag solution. You might remember that I was considering a JuiceBag for the tour last year but in the end the idea was dropped because the wattage wasn’t high enough. This solution from Voltaic bumps the wattage up to 17W by using a monocrystalline panel.
The Voltaic Generator is the first solar bag powerful enough to charge a laptop. It uses high efficiency solar cells to generate maximum power in the limited space available. It includes a battery pack custom designed to efficiently store and convert the electricity generated. It can also charge cell phones and most other hand held electronics.
At a recommended price of $599 you won’t be buying one for the kids but for field-work this provides protection and charging in one neat solution.
SelectSolar will have these in stock soon.
May/080
Solar cells on Portable devices. Apple Patent.
MacRumors have just reported on a patent filed by Apple that shows how they see a possibility to integrate solar cells into the display panel.
Solar panels will have to get much more efficient and power-drain reduced down to the sub 5W range before this technique has legs for any form of general computing device. Screens are never used in direct sunlight and I’m sure that the LCD layer will reduce efficiency by a huge amount but considering that its one of the largest available areas on any portable device, it makes sense to start thinking about it for the future.
May/083
Solar-UMPC-powered web server testing.
Yes, its that time of year again where we get the first encouraging days of sunshine in Europe so I’ve been into the cellar and dusted-off my Sunlinq 24W solar panel.
Sun strength for the last 2.5 days.
I’m not planning a solar-umpc tour this year but I am planning to get some use out of the panel. At the moment, the plan is to run a UMPC from the solar panel that could serve this blog. I doubt i’ll be able to do it 24/7 for the whole of summer but I’m running some tests on the Raon Digital Everun S6S at the moment to see exactly how much I could get out of it with the 24W panel.
The Everun, when configured for 400Mhz with WIfi and screen off, will consume a tiny 4W at idle and about 6W at full power which is about as low as you can go with a PC without having to switch to an ARM architecture. I don’t want to do that because the plan is just to install a basic Ubuntu image, fire up Apache and SSH and serve this blog as a set of static web pages. WIthout Mysql or PHP running it should keep the processor load down to a minimum although i’m not sure that Ubuntu will be able to switch the CPU into 400Mhz mode. It might have to stay locked at 600Mhz.
At 5W drain, the server would need 120Wh of energy to power it for a full day. With a 24Wh panel I’m only going to get about 80-100Wh per day on average (using the 4-hours sun/day rule that applies to this part of the world) so at some point, back-up power is going to be needed. The problem is, how can I switch-over to back-up power (or gracefuly switch over to another server.) Switching the servers is OK but getting the Everun to shutdown when it reaches 5% power is impossible under Linux right now.
The Alternative is to shut-down the server between 0300 and 0900 every day and to try and regulate it that way or just keep topping up the SLA battery from other sources when needed.
I’m going to need a couple of new items for this project though.
1) Power usage measurement tools. I want to feed the data back into the website. Power used, power given by panel, current battery level. Any tips there would be much appreciated. Should I buy a dedicated data logging system with software or are there simpler ways to do this.
2) An ethernet port. The Everun only has a WIfi connection and that would take too much power so I’m looking at a USB to Ethernet adaptor. This one from SMC takes about 150mw which will be fine.
3) Bigger SLA battery. Rather than using the 56whr battery that I have, I should get one that takes about 200wh so that if we have two or three good days of sunshine, I can store the engergy and use it on days where the sun is weaker.
Solar panel positioning is going to be a major problem at my house which is badly oriented for a solar panel. I’m also a bit worried about loss along the length of cable I will need in order to position the solar panel correctly.
Over the next few weeks I hope to at least have a partial solar-powered web server running but if this blog disappears, you’ll know what’s happened!
Jan/080
14W Solar bag. Useful but expensive.
It looks like Voltaic will be releasing a 14w solar panel bag, a huge step up from their, largely useless, at least for UMPCs, 4W bad. I hope its not a typo as the three-panel setup look exactly the same as before.
If it really is 14W then I’m interested. Well almost. The design is a little on the ugly side and the price of $559 means I could actually buy a stack of spare Li-ion batteries that, charged, would run a UMPC or one of the new Menlow-based MIDS showing up at CES for a few weeks or more!
This story is from CNet and the author mention in the article that they will be running a story about solar laptops soon. That should be interesting and one to look out for.
Thanks to Matt for the tip.
Dec/070
Solar powered ‘desktop PC’
This setup looks familiar!! Mini PC, Solar panel battery pack. The only difference here to my UMPC setup is that the CPU and screen are in separate units.
The Aleutia E1 is billed as the ‘ultimate off-grid computer’ by the London based company and they also offer the complete solution as an ‘office in a box’ package.
I have a few issues with the package though. First, the PC itself is running on a very low end 200Mhz, unspecified ‘X86′ processor. Secondly, the screen they’re using can take up to 10W. With the PC taking up to 8W, the whole solution seems fairly heavyweight compared to a UMPC-based solution.
I’ve just been testing an HTC Shift which has the 7″ 800×480 screen and can run Vista with Aero at an average 8.5w with the Wifi on! The AMD-based Kohjinsha SA1 averages even less and if you managed to get hold of an XO Laptop through he OLPC’s G1G1 program, you’d be averaging something like 3W drain giving you 6-times the run-time of this solution – with twice the processor speed!
On the plus side though, the complete solar office solution comes in at under 500 pounds sterling. That’s not bad at all.
Via LinuxScrew. Thanks Klaus.
Dec/070
Solar powered ‘desktop PC’
This setup looks familiar!! Mini PC, Solar panel battery pack. The only difference here to my UMPC setup is that the CPU and screen are in separate units.
The Aleutia E1 is billed as the ‘ultimate off-grid computer’ by the London based company and they also offer the complete solution as an ‘office in a box’ package.
I have a few issues with the package though. First, the PC itself is running on a very low end 200Mhz, unspecified ‘X86′ processor. Secondly, the screen they’re using can take up to 10W. With the PC taking up to 8W, the whole solution seems fairly heavyweight compared to a UMPC-based solution.
I’ve just been testing an HTC Shift which has the 7″ 800×480 screen and can run Vista with Aero at an average 8.5w with the Wifi on! The AMD-based Kohjinsha SA1 averages even less and if you managed to get hold of an XO Laptop through he OLPC’s G1G1 program, you’d be averaging something like 3W drain giving you 6-times the run-time of this solution – with twice the processor speed!
On the plus side though, the complete solar office solution comes in at under 500 pounds sterling. That’s not bad at all.
Via LinuxScrew. Thanks Klaus.
admin
chippy