Solar mods

[bemorphy]

Saw Shans video on the solar mod so thought I would give it a shot.
Bought two of them , won on ebay and modded one and did not have to do anything to the other as my usb pass through hooks right up to it.
See my profile for pics.
Post your solar mods here if you like. The one I did was tough to do. The plastic so cheap it cracked when drilling... and I added a second battery in parallel into this, so the solar panel had to be mounted on the outside of the case, it is no problem, gives a better hit too. here is one pic. Found a nice 6 dollar solar panel at radio shack that will become something soon with batteries and who knows.

Leave a message for me if you want. I am just having more fun with this and thinking about making a new rebuildable atty and tank next. Still in thinking stage.

 

[dgm76513]

Well I find this mod interesting. How long does it take to recharge the batteries? Does it have an overcharge protection circuit in case you leave this in your car out in the sun all day?

It seems the charging efficiency would be reduced while you were using it as your hand would be covering the PV cells.

I see this being practically used as a portable solar charger, that doubles as a mod. I like it.

Good job

As a side note: I'm not sure it would fare well in direct sunlight in the summer. I live in Texas and something like this, if left outside, would melt in a heartbeat. The batteries within, I imagine, would not fare well either. But, sitting on a window sill indoors with air conditioning, why not? Artificial light, while not as efficient as direct sunlight, would still induce a charge on a PV cell as well.

 

[bemorphy]

I id nothing to the circuit board inside except remove the output connector, so I am not sure what the board has on it, maybe over charge protect, regulated out put etc. I have put it in the direct sun here in Palm Springs, hot hot hot. But not for very long. It began as a solar cell phone charger. I have not had any problem with it and it works good as my back up or light vape in the morning, as it is at around 4 volts. More of a science project than anything and I hope to expand upon the idea in the future. It is nice to hold and if my fingers cover the solar cell for awhile it don't matter much as it is almost always having the red charging light on. Thanks for the interest.
Terry

 

[AzIrish]

I like fun moding and will try it out. I was at radio shack today looking at that solar panel wondering would that work... I'm going to make one. Thanks and WTG.. :thumbup:

 

[Hottody]

I love the idea of the solar Mod! GREAT CONCEPT FOR SURE!

 

[bemorphy]

In my quest for solar vaping I just got this VV digital read out board. The solar panel is putting out 10V and I adjust the output up to 6V. when the load is applied the out put drops to 2.4V to vape with. It works but not quite enough to really get a good vape. I am wondering if there is something else that can be done to make this work better. IE. another VV board???
There must be a way to make this work so that when all else has failed, powers out, batterys are all dead and no way to recharge them, a person could still vape nicely from the sun. My knowledge is limited on electronics as I have forgotten most of what I learned in high school 30 some years ago.
If anyone is interested in this same line of testing and can produce a workable system, I would be glad to hear from you.




Biggest un answered question? Why is there such a huge voltage drop when the load is applied????
There cannot be that much of a drop using USB passthrough, or my other box mods, as they all vape nicely.
Let me know if you have any ideas or suggestions and want to follow this type of testing

 

[slimest]

If you want to use a solar charger, consider its output power. We cannot violate the laws of nature. Charging - about honest 500ma with 5V output. Vaping - about 2A with approx the same voltage.

 

[bemorphy]

Oh this is not charging. I am attempting to use the solar panel as the power source 10v, stepped down thru the board to 5 or 6 volts, it is not charging anything. I realize I would need 3 or 4 giant solar panels to get the amps I would need to vape straight away from, but then the voltage would be too high. I am just wondering why the voltage drop is so extreme. Again, maybe the step down board has something to do with not being suited to this power source.
Any ideas.

 

[denali_41]

i really doubt your solar panel can keep up with normal vaping,,when i had a ego pass through i noticed that a fully charged battery would start charging after first vape,take maybe 5 mins to achieve fully charged status after that one vape

but i love the thinking outside of the box here,,keep at it !!

 

[bemorphy]

Thank you. Now vaping directly off the sola panel is quite impossible. Just not enough current. It is the board that makes it even remotely possible to vape. I believe it is do able but not as it sits. Will keep trying, although it will probably work better at night lol.

 

[cadcoke5]

bemorphy said: "I am just wondering why the voltage drop is so extreme."

When you try to draw more current from a source that it is able to provide, the voltage will drop. You may also be damaging the source, since you are starting to get close to creating a short circuit. I don't know if solar cells are actually damageable from being short circuited, though.

I imagine it may be possible to make a circuit that uses the solar source to fast-charge a capacitor, which is used to supply power for just a single puff. The reason this may work is that you don't need the full current all the time, just perhaps 10% of the time. That leaves 90% of the time to grab some more electricity and hold onto it for a short time.

Joe Dunfee

 

[asdaq]

So that is why I had no sun today!

Better to have the solar panel trickle charge a battery, and to have that battery supply the vaping voltage.

 

[sportyfortyeight]

Set the panel to charge a battery then vape off it. A buddy of mine has 95% of his house power from solar. . He does have a hall closest full of batterys though

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Lance_Wallen]

I would do what some of the other posters have said. If you can get the output tuned to 500mA at 5.5v get yourself a DNA12 board and charging circuit, wire the solar panel to the charging circuit and slap a 18350 IMR in there, vape off the IMR through the DNA board and see how long a battery lasts using hte solar with the charger hooked up full time. if it can't hang, up it to an 18650.

If an 18650 cell still can't hang with the solar trickle charging it whenever available then you're deffinitely vaping more than it can charge and it wont get you that infinite power source.

 

[Skyway]

I am not a professional electrician, most of my electronic training was back in high school and the army so I am a little fuzzy. I would think a good capacitor might help in this situation to help store the power from the charge if you still wanted to continue to try to vape straight from the sun. Then again, it is most likely the solar cell. I have heard that if using a good quality cell, the power produced improves 10fold. Most of the panels that a lot of people have access too just can not handle what we want out of them.
Maybe we should work on a wind turbine vape lol.
I see a storm a brewin, Charlie must be vaping like crazy!

 

[Lance_Wallen]

most capacitors require additional 'stuff' to control the output. Solar, in residential use at least, is generally not what's powering the home. It's recharging the batteries that power the home. taking the same approach on a vape mod is probably the most effecient way to go. Solar cells aren't immensely effecient in the first place and they deffinitely aren't speedy in small panel configurations so once you put everything in line between the cell and the atomizer to condition the power, regulate it, and make it useable for an atomizer connection you're going to have added even more ineffeciencies to the circuit. Using it as a charger for a battery which has a relatively conditioned output on it's own will reduce components and increase overall power effeciency of the device (reducing components has the bonus side effect of reducing size in many situations).

The balancing act will be picking a battery that matches your use profile. We don't all vape every second of every day so there will be 'down time' where the solar charger can catch up to your use pattern. What you need is a battery that has enough capacity to make it through your heavy use times and a charging system that will fill the battery back up before the next heavy use time or at least put enough juice in to make it through your next useage. The goal being a net 0 power loss over 24 hours.

If you vape 1000mAh worth of battery in a day and have a charger that will, over the course of the same day put in 1000mAh thats one thing, but we're going for effeciency right? small size, the minimal amount of components and "stuff" to make it work well.

So you vape 1000mAh a day, your system charges 1000mAh a day, if your use scenario has it so you really vape the majority of that 1000mAh before work, during lunch and in the evenings you probably don't need 1000mAh in one sitting, so shrink your battery to say 500mAh. etc... it will get really complicated, a lot of testing can make it really neat though if you're into that sorta thing

 

[asdaq]

Here's raidy's done right:

Inside: 2*18650, a ATiny25, which controls the voltage and accu-load, an a 150mA solarpanel.