How to Build a Solar Powered Laptop Charger

Portable solar laptops chargers have been around for a little while now, and they offer a great way to extend the battery life of your laptop using renewable, clean energy. While we typically can't run our laptops solely on a portable solar charger the way we can when we plug into a wall outlet, we can get our batteries to last quite a bit longer, or recharge our laptop batteries while turned off.

However, these portable solar chargers always had some issues that makes them undesirable. Along with its issues, it is well known in customers. But now our topic is how to build a solar powered laptop chargers, so we don't waste time and come to our topic.
Here is a method for powering portable computers by photovoltaic means. Netbooks, notebooks, MP3 players charged by the sun....

Steps taken for making Solar Powered Laptop Charger

1 Start small until you understand what you are doing and work your way up. Read more on the solar cell they are interested in using and read up on panel design techniques. Basically the solar cells must be mounted inside a housing which has to be sealed from the elements to prevent dust and condensation from forming on the cells which will reduce the power output severely.

2. Estimate your Power Requirements:. What voltage and watts are required for a device, you can find it from a label or power supply of that device. So read the label on your device or its power supply before designing the charger. If you want to design a charger for multiple devices, use maximum voltage and wattage of the most power hungry device. It will require a sizable panel to charge multiple devices simultaneously. If this is your goal, design the charger to produce 110 or 220, whichever is your normal power line voltage. Then just use the standard chargers and plug them into the panel - this will save you a lot of design time for making multiple d.c. voltages available for different devices, it will also give you more flexibility in adding future device.

3. If you are designing for a single voltage/wattage combo, i.e., 12volt 12 watts, the formula for conversion of Watts to Amps

Amps = Watts/Volts:

For example, 12 watts/12 volts = 1 amp - so there is your design spec, you need to build a device that will output 12 volts - if you want to charge the device directly from the solar panel without using the power adaptor that came with your device, you also need to understand what sort of charge cycle your battery requires. Different battery chemistries require different charging techniques..

4. Do you Know What is Parallel and Series Wiring

      This is not complicated.  You can be aware of parallel and series wiring by this example:-

If you tie the "+" of one solar cell to the "-" of the next solar cell and repeat this your voltage will be a multiple of the number of cells tied together - i.e. if each cell is .5 volts and you tie 12 cells together like this, you will have a panel that is wired in series and produces 6 volts (12 x 0.5) - this formula is only for voltage, not for watts or Amps. So, if your cells output .5 volts and 10 watts, your panel will output 6 volts and 10 watts. To increase wattage you tie multiply panels together using parallel wiring, in parallel wiring you tie the "+" wires from the other panels together and the "-" wires together with the "-" wires from the other panels - do not tie the plus and minus together or you will short out your panels. So if you tie two panels together (each panel is wired in series) in parallel, you will now have an output of 6 volts and 20 watts. You use this technique to combine cells into panels to produce your desired output voltage/amperage/wattage per your spec.

5. For AC Voltage Panel:-

      If you are building an ac voltage panel, add an inverter which converts d.c. to a.c. and supplies a clean sine wave so that any device you plug into the panel will operate properly.

Warnings

            Before building a solar power laptop charger, you are to understand what you are doing. You should know the techniques and basic things to do for making solar power charger. Solar cells can produce lethal voltages. So use small cells and low voltages until you understand what you are doing. If you kill yourself, no one is at fault except you, so don't try this if you don't understand what you are doing. Millions of solar panels have been built and very few people have died, but you could be the unlucky one if you don't pay attention and understand what you are doing.