Solar Panel for iQue - A Bit Pricey

[Statsman]

I know several people here have been looking for a solar panel for charging the iQue, well...

Here is another solar panel for using the iQue outdoors,

http://www.brunton.com/catalog.php?item_id=256&category_id=8&subcategory_id=42&old_item_id=256&old_category_id=8&old_subcategory_id=42

[Brian-in-NJ]

Originally posted by Statsman
I know several people here have been looking for a solar panel for charging the iQue, well...

Here is another solar panel for using the iQue outdoors,

http://www.brunton.com/catalog.php?item_id=256&category_id=8&subcategory_id=42&old_item_id=256&old_category_id=8&old_subcategory_id=42
I can see it now... someone will build a jacket and incorporate this into the design as a charger for phone, palm etc. Kind of like the Jacket that has the iPod controls built into it. :p

[mco_chris]

These look similar and are cheaper:

http://www.icpsolar.com/

[Kasteo]

Acually you can get it much cheaper than that. I bought 4 panels of VW 12V SOLAR PANEL from eBay for around $60. Each panel can produce :

Max Power: 3.2 W
Voltage at max power: 18.8 V
Current at max Power: 170 mA

I think 4 of them should be enough to give the power to iQue. I still need to figure it out how to reduce the max power to only 12V so I can use the car jack to feed the power to iQue.

[jonasolof]

Originally posted by Kasteo
Acually you can get it much cheaper than that. I bought 4 panels of VW 12V SOLAR PANEL from eBay for around $60. Each panel can produce :

Max Power: 3.2 W
Voltage at max power: 18.8 V
Current at max Power: 170 mA

I think 4 of them should be enough to give the power to iQue. I still need to figure it out how to reduce the max power to only 12V so I can use the car jack to feed the power to iQue.

Don't go that way. Find a DC-DC switching circuit that does he job for you. See TES-6 at www.tracopower.com, that's just one brand that would suit your need.

[Kasteo]

I'm not an electronic guru so I'm not quite sure I understand those stuffs well enough...

I look at TES-6 as you said. I think the one that seem to suit this project is TES 6-1222 ?

Input voltage range : 9-18VDC
Output voltage : ± 12 VDC
Output current max: ± 310 mA

But if I wire 4 panels of the VW solar power together in parallel, it will produce around 680mA which is what I need. It seem this TES 6-1222 will limit the output to only 310mA which might not enough to feed iQue?