Since we do use lots of re-chargeables of various sizes, I picked up a universal charger. The other day I was digging through my den closet and came across some solar panels I had bought at a Radio Shack clearance sale awhile ago.
I looked at the panels.
Looked at the charger.
Looked at the panels.
Looked at the window w/ the sun shining through.
And the lightbulb came on.
Not as fast as the plug in but a trickle charge is better and it will save a few more pennies each month. And when the Zombie Apocalypse comes and the power grid fails, I'll still be able to use my flashlights.
3 comments:
Nice! I picked up one of these for the disaster kit after seeing some of the dangerous-looking charging setups people were using for their phones after the quake in Chile.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001QKUK6W/
I need to test it a bit more, but I have had a chance to use it at a motorcycle track day, to keep my phone charged. I also bought a cigarette lighter charger for AA and AAA batteries, which I have tried with it.
I've got a random solar panel (kicks out about 40W I think) that I've never put to use.
Sometimes I get to thinking I should make a battery bank that the panel charges which runs my home networking gear. The draw is really low on that stuff so the panel could run it all and charge the batteries during the day.
Might be a useful way of keeping the internet on after a storm. Given that we've got scads of laptops around the house with batteries almost always fully charged those wouldn't be the problem.
And, yes, with cable internet a localized power outage doesn't mean that the cable is actually dead. Or so I'm told.
"And the lightbulb came on." .... you mean the CFL came on... right?
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