Making a solar powered laptop?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Status
Not open for further replies.
shovenose

shovenose

Distinguished
Dec 6, 2009
3,377
0
20,960
O yeah the title pretty much explains it i guess. Its very easy for me to get an old pentium3 laptop or something. I am wondering how i would do this, because i want to be able to just sit my laptop in the sun if the battery dies preferwbly, so i think i would just be able to put a solar panel in place of the charger... I also think it would be cool to just have the solar panel attached to the outside of the lid part of screen if u know what i mean :).
I am wondering how high the voltage tolerance for a laptop is. Example: the laptop requires 12volts, and say i use a 12v solar panel. However, if the angle of the panel to the sum isnt right maybe it wont have enough voltage? Thanks in advance! Any ideaswelcome. And yes i want this to be as inexpensive as possible. Also, i am wondering which kind of laptpp i should get? It would be an old p3 or similar...
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
saaiello

saaiello

Splendid
Oct 13, 2009
4,042
0
23,460
I just did a quick look at solar Panels and to get enough power to run a laptop you will need a panel that has at least a 50 watt output and for a panel with that output is 4 feet by 2 feet so its quite big now you would need to find a laptop that only needs maybe around 20 watts or so to be able to actually fit a solar panel to it that would power it. The concept would be cool but solar panels aren't quite efficient enough to do something like you want.

I am sure you could find a solar panel though that would be small and have enough juice to run it but for the cost of that you could just buy 2 or 3 spare batteries and be good to go. Now what you could do is get a small solar panel that could be enough to atleast charge a spare battery but thats about as far as your gonna get without dropping a fortune.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
ksampanna

ksampanna

Distinguished
Apr 11, 2010
1,284
0
19,360
You should also consider windmills.

Jokes apart, I do think that the whole setup would be impractical, since laptops consume negigible power anyway, & you'll never really recover back the cost of the solar panels. Even if did, by that time, the panel would have conked out or would be overdue for some maintainence (which would add to the initial cost).
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
saaiello

saaiello

Splendid
Oct 13, 2009
4,042
0
23,460

Yea that kind of thing has been around for a few years now where you can charge a backup battery via the solar panel which takes 7 to 9 hours to charge a battery not very practical but would work if you need it. I have even seen backpacks with solar panels built into so it can charge your cell phone or your GPS device if you are into hiking so this is nothing new.

What he wants is a panel that will run the laptop which to get enough power from a solar panel to run a laptop it would be way to big and bulky to be practical.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
shovenose

shovenose

Distinguished
Dec 6, 2009
3,377
0
20,960
Its not really meant to save power. Its just cuz i want to do it. How
much does a p2/3 laptop consume? What so you mean the panel will need maintenance. No i dont want a laptop bag with built-in panels those are boring i actually want to attach the panel to the laptop…
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
saaiello

saaiello

Splendid
Oct 13, 2009
4,042
0
23,460

A P3 or P4 laptop will use between 30 and 50 watts and like I said the surface area that you need to have enough power would be like 3 times the size of the laptop. Even a little netbook with an Atom processor will draw about 25 and when you look at the size of it the panel will dwarf it.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
shovenose

shovenose

Distinguished
Dec 6, 2009
3,377
0
20,960

you said a p3 or p4. what abouta p1 or2? or some amd equivalent?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
shovenose

shovenose

Distinguished
Dec 6, 2009
3,377
0
20,960
ok: new idea:
build the panel into the laptop and only use it to charge the battery and not run the laptop. is that possible? so i just put a solar panel on big enough to charge the battery but disconnect it or turn off a switch na dit will disconnect, letting me run off of the battery...
does that sound like a better idea?
what components do i need?
how much will it cost?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
shovenose

shovenose

Distinguished
Dec 6, 2009
3,377
0
20,960
ok so i think if i were to do this, the victim of this would be my netbook.
900mhz celeron m
1gb ram
40gb hdd
8.9" lcd w/led backlight

so i looked at the power adapter:
12v, 3amps max, so i assume that means i need a 36watt panel, right?

these are all rather approximate, i rounded down to the nearest .25 inch...
the back of the screen is: 8.75" x 5.75"
i could proably do a 9x6 panel but id rather do the above size^
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
saaiello

saaiello

Splendid
Oct 13, 2009
4,042
0
23,460
Well heres the thing anything really below a P4 will be useless it wont even be able to do much online I have an old P3 Tualatin 1.4ghz I was messing with and it cant really do anything useful online flash wont work you wont even be able to watch a youtube video. You will need to find at the very least a P4 2.0ghz to do anything useful. About the most you can do with a P3 is word processing anything beyond that just simply wont work web pages are just to complex for that old hardware to handle.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
shovenose

shovenose

Distinguished
Dec 6, 2009
3,377
0
20,960
please dont diss my netbook. thanks.
yes i know its old tech but i got it on sale at best buy for really cheap a year or so ago. i have already had to replace the hdd and the screen cuz i broke them.
i understand it isnt that useful but please help me with my solar panel idea! thanks!
i was able to watch a youtube video btw!
thanks!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
saaiello

saaiello

Splendid
Oct 13, 2009
4,042
0
23,460

On a Pentium 3 I doubt it.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
saaiello

saaiello

Splendid
Oct 13, 2009
4,042
0
23,460
The Celeron is way faster than the Atom but I wouldn't put win 7 on it unless you have at least 2 gigs of RAM.

my friend put win7 ultimate on a pentium 3 500mhz, 512mb ram, and a 10gb ata hard drive
Click to expand...

Yea I had win 7 on my P3 1.4 ghz with 512MB of RAM it wa terribly slow it would have probably been better with more RAM but it was so slow that it would take literally 5 minutes just to open mozilla.



 
Upvote 0 Downvote
shovenose

shovenose

Distinguished
Dec 6, 2009
3,377
0
20,960

thanks for tinformation. wow this is the first time i can be proud of celerons!
ok so are there any 36+ watt solar panels out there with a 9x6 dimenesion?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
saaiello

saaiello

Splendid
Oct 13, 2009
4,042
0
23,460
Well you would just cut off the cigerette plug and attach the negative and postive wires to the panel or you could just get one of these.

265-570_s.jpg

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=265-570
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Status
Not open for further replies.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom