July 01, 2004
Kinkajou Power Supply: Solar Lanterns
Some research into the Freeplay radio's crank generator suggests that it might not be the ideal solution for our application. David Gordon Wilson's book Bicycling Science suggests that the best output we could hope from from a one-handed crank generator would be 15 watts, which would yield a 1:3 crank-to-use ratio for the Kinkajou (ie one hour of cranking for every three hours of use).
We are now looking into solar lanterns as a potential off-the-shelf integrated power supply for the Kinkajou--one that has the added benefit of supply the classroom with light when the projector is off. Unlike the Freeplay radio, which consumes less than one watt, many solar lanterns are designed to store and supply power for fluorescent bulbs consuming 10 or more watts. Some lanterns even include a 12V DC power outlet, for running radios and tape recorders.
"ITDG's consulting subsidiary ITC have developed a low cost Solar Lantern designed to make this source of energy more accessible. The lantern, now in prototype, can provide up to six hours of high quality light, or a combination of light and radio output to bring news and information to households." -- from the ITDG website. Here is a summary of the ITDG solar lantern project. Here is a final report on the Glowstar product development process (PDF). Additional specs are available through Sollatek, the lantern manufacturer, for example this lantern spec sheet (PDF).
The Solaris Solar Lantern from Light Corp, which uses components from Uni-Solar.
I live in namibie witch are sitsuated in the
south-west of Africa.My home is inland in the
south-east of Namibie.I am very much interested
in purchase n few of your Solaris solar lanterns,
but not sure how you can send it to me and in
which manner i can pay you for the product and
the postal cost.
Nobody in this country sell any solar lanterns
and we sure can use a few thousand of them
because half of the country has no means of
electrisity.Big shops who usually sell that tipe
of products are:Cymot headoffice@cymot.com
Agra sigil@agra.com.na
Safari den safariden@agra.com.na
Please report back.
Kobus de klerk
Posted by: Kobus de klerk at July 27, 2004 06:06 AM
