Solar power experiment?

Question

Hey folks, first question from me here.

I was wanting to run a little experiment this summer involving car batteries, 100 watt solar panels, and my computer, but I lack a certain amount of technical knowledge. I was wondering, is it possible to hook up a computer to car batteries that can be recharged using solar panels?

My computer and monitor draw about 163 watts per hour. What I was intending to do was have two batteries hooked up to supply power to the computer, with two more batteries being charged via solar panels during the day. The objective was to run my computer without having it plugged into an outlet.

Is this even remotely possible to do? What kind of batteries should I use?

Thanks.

Answer 1

cool, I'm working on a project myself with bluetooth replacing powerlines. I just patten my project last month.

Answer 2

This is possible. It would be easiest if you could find a engineered solution. I will do a bit of hunting and see if I can find something for you.

Update:

Combining a solar panel with the item below (first link)looks like it might do the trick. The item below is a battery, charger and inverter combination. It can be charged either from 110 AC power of from 12 VDC power. You will need a 12 V solar panel to go with it for charging. Once charged it will run any 110VAC appliance that draws less than 400 watts including your computer.

I have also included a link to this company's solar panel page. I would recommend talking to the folks at this company first before you shell out cash. Make sure this will work the way I think it will. They were very helpful to me when I bought my solar panels there.

Update 2:

I just took a look at the manual for the XPower Powerpack 400. You can charge it from a solar panel. The maximum size allowed is 2.5 amps at 12 W. You will need a plug adapter too. You probably can get it at a hardware store.

It should fully charge in one sunny day with maximum sized solar panel and It should run your computer for about a bit longer than one hour.

It looks pretty cool. I may get one for myself too.

Answer 3

Yes, you could do that. There are 12V adapters you can get for most laptops, and there are general purpose 120VAC adapters that will run from 12V that you can use for a desktop of even for a laptop by plugging in the laptop's charger. Radio Shack and others sell them. And you don't even need 2 sets of batteries. You can get solar charging controllers and just connect your solar panels and computer to the same battery. You should use deep cycle batteries, which are the kind used in RVs.

Answer 4

Let's see you can use the solar panels to recharge the two car batteries. But you need a inverter to convert 12 volt DC to 120 Volts AC. Inverters can be found at an auto parts store for instance they come in different ratings so chech how much wattage they can dissapate.

You also need a charging circuit between the solar panels and batteries.

A safety note here keep the batteries in a well ventilated space as car batteries give off flam able and toxic gas!