Solar IS Civil Defense

Solar IS Civil Defense.  Start with the basics.  What do you need in case of emergency or disaster?  Flashlight, radio, and an extra set of batteries.

You have that in one package with a solar/dynamo flashlight/radio.  If the solar/dynamo can charge rechargeable AA batteries, then you also have a source of low voltage DC electricity, day or night, by sunlight or muscle power.

A solar/dynamo battery charger that can provide light and communications, like a radio or a cell phone or both, is useful for camping as well as emergency or disaster.  Solar IS civil defense and more than civil defense, too.  Micro-solar, AA solar, cell phone solar is a scale that fits within both the developing and developed world very well.

In Afghanistan, NATO forces are distributing solar/dynamo AM/FM/SW radios.  Do those solar/dynamo radios have the ability to charge extra batteries?  If they do, then with enough rechargeable batteries there is a low voltage DC network through battery switching.  

Iraq now has less electricity than that sovereign country had under the hated Saddam Hussein.  Could we use tactical solar for nation-building?

You can take one room essentially off-grid for less than $200 dollars with solar LED reading lights and radio.  You can modify existing solar/dynamo products to charge AA and other batteries.  You can see videos of working propotypes and developing designs here.

A proposed solar public education campaign is here.  It includes the public demonstration of solar and applied ecology at events like the 3700 farmers markets that happen every week around the USA throughout growing season;  a solar product chain from a Minimum Solar Light to a one room/one window solar system available in various modes - PV, heating, cooling, and ventilation;  and a do-it-yourself solar video program Your Southernmost Window that currently is in production as an open source invention and viral video project.

Solar Is Civil Defense and always will be.  You can even use the original WWII posters to help prove it.

Here are links to other relevent WWII Posters.

Solar Is Civil Defense.

•  question

  I have a sloar motion sensor floodlight. The panel is about 6x8 and the bulb is a 12volt 1157 taillamp. my question what would be needed to use this little panel to charge other batteries or cell phones and the like.

  by buddabelly on Fri Mar 30, 2007 at 11:27:20 AM PDT

  •  sloar in english is solar.....

    by buddabelly on Fri Mar 30, 2007 at 11:28:13 AM PDT

  •  Answer: It Depends.

    Modern rechargeable batteries based on Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) or Lithium Ion (Li-ion) technologies need "smart" chargers that will adjust the charge voltage and current based on measurements taken of the battery during charge. Older batteries (Nickel-Cadmium, aka "NiCd" or "Nicads") can simply be charged at a flat voltage.

    What you probably want to do is find a charger for those batteries design to plug into a car cigarette lighter (which is a 12v supply) and configure your solar cells to deliver 12 volts to that. Then you just have make sure you have enough cells to deliver the current required by the charger, which you can determine by putting an ammeter in series with the charger when it has discharged batteries in it and it is plugged in to a car socket.

    Make sense? I wrote this in a hurry.

    by evilpenguin on Fri Mar 30, 2007 at 01:28:32 PM PDT

    •  the panel is seperate

      and I called the manu. they said the panel will put out between 6 and 10 volts depending on sunshine. could the panel just be plugged directly into a charger through an adapter plug? the batt in the light is 6 volt not 12 I was mistaken originally. Also could the lamp be replaced with an array of leds to save juice. I bought some led christmas lights and I am curious how they work. I tried hooking a single replacement to a 9 volt batt and set it on fire. Is it just the fact that there is so many in line that they can take the 110 voltage?

      by buddabelly on Sat Mar 31, 2007 at 11:32:33 AM PDT

      •  LEDs need pull-up resistors

        My old man was a EE. I'm a software engineer ho know just enough to be aware how profound his ignorance is. When my dad and I were building circuits, LEDs needed a "pull-up resistor" wired in series. Unless these new superbright white LEDs have this built in, you will need some additional electronic components.

        You certainly can do everything you want to do, but you need someone who actually knows this stuff. What I said about battery types above is true, as far as it goes. But you need to know some basic stuff like voltage adds in series, amperage in parallel, and so forth. You need to understand that it is not only the voltage that matters from the cells, their average and peak current also matter.

        The voltage of the cells really shouldn't vary. It is a function of their solid state physics and how they are wired into the panel (the voltage variation they are talking about is probably due to voltage drop across bypass diodes between the cells, but you are moving to the limits of my knowledge here.)

        As for your LED experiment, no, they work on AC power because of one or more of the following:

        1. A step-down transformer to get the voltage down to the low voltage they require (some sort of "brick" where it plugs into the wall or st least before the first lamp).

        2. A bridge rectifier to keep the A/C going in one direction.

        LEDs have "polarity." You can't hook the leads up either way like you can with a purely resistive load like a lamp. The have an "anode" and a "cathode." Even more confusing, polarity the world of batteries and such is backwards from polarity in the world of semi-conductors (because the people who worked with batteries back in the 19th century were guessing, but the people who invented semi-conductors knew about atoms, protons, and electrons).

        You really need to get some books.

        Try this, which I haven't read, but from the description, seems like a useful starting point. Try this which I have read and it is a great book. This is the book the Navy uses for all qualifications that deal with electricity in their work.  Then go on to this which I did read 100 years ago and have forgotten most of it, but by the time you get through these three you should be on course for yourself.

        Also read some books specifically on PV (photovoltaics). There are considerations when working with these devices that are specific to them. This book looks good. I have not read it.

        I really do not know (or remember) enough to be directly helpful to you. But I think the "paper brains" I suggest are a good place to start.

        by evilpenguin on Sun Apr 01, 2007 at 09:05:13 AM PDT

        •  thanks for the info Looks like I'll be busy n/t

          by buddabelly on Sun Apr 01, 2007 at 12:46:22 PM PDT

•  I got a new battery charger

  off eBay the other day.  I am listening to NPR right now on sunshine.

  $20+shipping, works fine. It does AAA, AA, C and D.  

  by mem from somerville on Fri Mar 30, 2007 at 11:30:51 AM PDT

•  Go Sloar With Solar

  I'm not any kind of expert on circuits and wiring but would suggest that you need a battery box for the new batteries you want to charge and some wiring to tie it into the solar circuit and a switch to change from charging the existing batteries to the new battery box.  Depending upon the size of the solar cell, you want some kind of blocking diode possibly a Schottky diode or perhaps a 1N4003 blocking diode to stop discharge from the batteries through the PV panel at night.  Check the circuitry on your as yet unmodified floodlight to see what kind of blocking diode they are using and then go and do likewise with the new circuit.

  I recently added a circuit diagram for the modification of my solar/dynamo flashlight/radio into a battery charger at
  http://solarray.blogspot.com/...  

  Hope that helps.

  by gmoke on Fri Mar 30, 2007 at 11:46:22 AM PDT

  •  Thanks

    I just went out and took it down, about to pull it apart and see whats inside. Thanks on the radio deal I will ck that out as I have a similar radio.

    by buddabelly on Fri Mar 30, 2007 at 12:16:25 PM PDT

•  I want an exercise bike that runs the tv

  Then I want some anti-couch potato legislation....

  by Lefty Mama on Fri Mar 30, 2007 at 12:02:10 PM PDT

  •  Stepper Generator

    

    This the Freeplay Freecharge Weza Portable Energy Source.  Froogle google "Weza" for dealers and prices, usually around $250.

    Here's what one dealer wrote:

    This solid, foot-powered energy source really pumps out the juice at up to a 40-watt rate to charge its own internal battery for direct 12-volt power. To charge it, you simply step down on the pedal and the generator spins. Charging to full power takes modest dedication. Combine the Weza with our Xantrex XPower Powerpack 400 Plus and you can use it to run and recharge emergency lights, small power tools, or power a computer system or watch a mid-size TV for hours while losing weight.

    by gmoke on Fri Mar 30, 2007 at 06:51:27 PM PDT

•  Iraqs electricity problem could be solved with

  solar.  

  If every rooftop had solar providing electricity for just that home, they could always go cook dinner at the neighbours when their home gets bombed, and as a whole the neighbourhood would have more reliable supply of electricity than if they live in hope that the wires dont get cut to the whole city.

  The extreme case of civil defense.

  If I were a solar salesperson I'd sell in a war zone.

  by dotcommodity on Fri Mar 30, 2007 at 02:42:47 PM PDT

  •  Electric Cooking

    I'm not sure that electricity is most efficient for cooking.  

    I'd look to solar thermal for cooking.  A solar cooker in a southfacing window and an insulated hot box would work and can be built out of styrofoam coffee cups and potato chip bags turned inside out.

    by gmoke on Fri Mar 30, 2007 at 06:56:19 PM PDT

•  and the military emphasis on energy independance

  like this solar printed (nanotech) tent that supplies soldiers with a builtin solar energy supply
  
  lost my link sorry, the company is konarco.. or konarko

  by dotcommodity on Fri Mar 30, 2007 at 02:47:10 PM PDT

  •  Solar/Wind Powered Marines

    The US Marines are planning a wind/solar generation system for Iraq this summer.  The US Air Force is installing solar streetlights on bases in Hawaii and Texas.  The military is doing a lot with renewables.

    by gmoke on Fri Mar 30, 2007 at 06:58:56 PM PDT