Chippy made it!

 Wow! Chippy, I'm contacting Al Gore with your information.I hope you can teach him how to go "really" green!

Wooooooohoooooooo! Total distance covered: 450km over 10 days. UMPC, Phone, Camera, GPS and Torch all topped up from Solar energy. I made it!

The Solar UMPC Blog!

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Chippy is living green

Yes, our friend Steve has finally make peace with our big brother the Sun and has started is "solar adventure".

Of course we had lots to talk about but I held back on saying too much about UMPCs. On the way back he was telling me how pocket PCs don't have the right OS, how the communicator has the same problem and how he wanted a small windows XP (not Vista - he still has some DOS programs that need to run) machine. When I showed him the Q1b back at the tent he was amazed and when I connected to the Internet on the spot he couldn't believe it. I passed my card over and smiled saying that I hadn't expected to be promoting UMPCs face-to-face on this tour!

I have been reading his comments and thinking for myself, would I do something like that? I would like, but I think that I'm too old already.

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 [Discuss This Topic]

How to use a solar panel to power your gadgets.

Steve has shot a video explaining how using the energy of the Sun you can power and charge all the electronic devices needed to keep blogging during a 7 days bike trip.

In the video I present the solar charging and storage setup that I've decided to use for the tour. Its based on the fag-packet drawing I did a few weeks ago after deciding that Li-Ion batteries weren't really the best solution.

This a really interesting project. If you are into "camping" you can learn from Steve's experience how to maintain your tend powered using the Sun. and if your live here in Florida, Sun is something that we have enough!

 

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Helping Steve to go totally Green!

Steve has started the preparation of his new Adventure: The Solar UMPC. Well, I can't see you Steve preparing this adventure and not trying to help you.

Here is what I would get if I was the one thinking about living in a Camping Tent.

1- I would get a Portable Backup Power Source like this one from Xantrex. This 600 Watt Power Source is capable of lighting a 50W lamp for around 2.5 to 3 hours. But here is the trick that will help you a lot.
2- I would buy to keep the Portable Backup Power Source charged this two items: A Solar Battery Charger and a Charger Controller.

The idea behind these 3 devices is to have power enough to power the UMPC and a few other things, the solar panel will take of charging the battery from the Portable Power Source while you are using it. I think that it the Powersource by itself was able to power a 50W lamp for around 3 hours having the Solar Panel connected all time could increase the number of hours at least 2 times. What do you think Steve?

Chippy as gone green!

Chippy as gone Green. He has created a new page to demonstrate how to use the Sun to power our UMPCs and other electronic devices. I always have found this idea interesting up to the point that I have been using solar energy to power my landscape lights for the last 3 years. And recently I recommended to install Solar Security Lights like this one to a company and they bought few of them.

Like Chippy I have been thinking about power my UMPC with Sun but I have to confess that I'm not traveling that much so I have not gone so far in this project. But what amaze me is how many things have in common good friends.

Good luck in your new project Chippy: Solar UMPC.