PV Gap

Scott Said:

Backup batteries and solar power?

We Answered:

Just get one of those 10 or 15 watt panels you should be able to get where you buy that pack.
It should charge it in around four good solar days.

So long as you can regualte the voltage to around 14V, and use a blocking diode to keep battery back feeding into the charger, you should be fine.

I don't have one of those packs, instead I have a straight 35Ah AGM cell with a 15 watt PV panel, charge controller, and 400W inverter. The system so far has mostly kept up with my nighly use (1/2 hr/night, around 100W CF lighting).

Randy Said:

Do you know of a good, cheap solar charger for a laptop?

We Answered:

here is an article for laptop solar chargers.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/10/…
The cheapest one mentions cost about 180 dollars.

Laptops uses lot of juice when it comes to solar chargers. A lot of these are more likely to extend the battery life for several hours.

Marian Said:

Are there any extremely portable, lower powered GPS chips?

We Answered:

It is more complex than that.

A GPS receiver needs an antenna, and the base antenna is 1.5" sq.
You also need something to do with the GPS data. That can be logged onto a memory chip with reasonable energy costs, after power consumed by the GPS circuits are accounted for. Transmitting it someplace takes energy. You will need a Lithium or other power pack to power it, and if you expect solar to even partly charge or power the device, in needs quite a few sq. inches, and be in direct sunlight.

I will reference my GPS logger, an iBlue BT-747. It is about the size of a small cell phone (in fact I keep it in a cell-phone carrier pouch), has a Cell-phone battery, and runs for nearly a day on a charge just logging, and Bluetooth aggravates battery draw.
iBlue makes (or at least made, when I was shopping for mine) a unit called the BT-757 which has a solar panel, which extends battery life somewhat. I believe it is about the size of a deck of cards or slightly more.