CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Stuff

SciCon Solar Panelled Bag

(21 posts)
  • Started 13 years ago by Wilmington's Cow
  • Latest reply from steveo

No tags yet.


  1. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    Interesting. Got an email last week from an Italian company called SciCon asking if I'd like a 'Solar Bag' for review. It arrived last night and it's an intriguing idea.

    The panel is on the flap, and inside there's a cable that runs into a battery which is then used to charge quite a number of items - mainly mobile phones and MP3 players - there is a connector with 8 different adaptors. Apparently on a sunny day the battery can take 8 hours to charge, but also works under indoor lights. Allegedly. I have it hooked up and under the lights here but the charging light isn't giving me anything.

    Once charged the battery will itself charge the like of an iPhone in about 2 hours. You can feed through directly from the panel - battery - iPhone (other mobile phones are available) but I presume this will charge pretty slowly.

    There's an idea here worth exploring. I actually think having this on panniers for touring would be a fab idea (and the same company makes panniers that convert into a backpack to carry off the bike).

    Hoping for a sunny day at the weekend to give it a proper test.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  2. kaputnik
    Moderator

    The future's bright. The future's dynamo powered :)

    Posted 13 years ago #

  3. wingpig
    Member

    What sort of input from the panel would the battery-in-the-bag be expecting (and what is its capacity)? On dull and rainy days could one (after some modding) charge the bag from a feed from the dynamo whilst moving?

    Posted 13 years ago #

  4. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    I'm going to dig out the numbers and get some mathematically sciency types to do some calculations.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  5. steveo
    Member

    I think this has come up before... But to get enough to run your iPhone you need either a small panel correctly orientated all day or a (relatively) massive panel pointed at the sun during the best (riding) part of the day.

    There is barely enough solar radiation at this time of year to run a couple of leds. Some thing of the order of 100w per sq metre.

    The future's bright. The future's dynamo powered :)

    Edit: here we go..
    iPhone has a battery around 5wh that's about 1400mah x 3.7v. So you'd need a 5w panel in optimal conditions for an hour to charge or a 1w panel 5hrs. Obviously there are losses this is the ideal world where drivers give us adequate space.

    A 5w panel is huge for a bike and unless you staked it out at midday during the summer you'd not get that 5w for the full hour. Similarly a 1w panel whilst small enough would take too long for these mystical ideal conditions so would take more like 8-10 hours of good sun light, with the panel facing the sun the whole time.

    http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=2385#post-25348

    Posted 13 years ago #

  6. steveo
    Member

    http://www.apricus.com/html/insolation_levels_europe.htm

    On an average November day there is a max 0.59 kw/h per sq m of solar energy available about 118 w per hour assuming a 5 hour day... So enough to run your blinkies. Compare to your dynamo which has 15kw/h (3w * 5hrs) though you do need to pedal for those...

    Posted 13 years ago #

  7. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    Yeah, that's pretty much the case I think. The battery takes about 8 hours in good sunlight to charge, so would presumably be about the same if flowing through to the iPhone directly (so presumably it is about a 1w panel).

    The thing is, you're not going to always have the phone or whatever plugged in, but this is where the battery comes in. Leave it plugged in, and whenever it's light enough it'll get a bit of a charge. Over two or three days it'll get fully charged (less during summer) and so you've always got a back-up battery there to charge your phone or whatever when you need it.

    The trick is working out how this is useful, rather than just thinking but it'll take an age to charge a phone. I'm going to use it for a couple of weeks and try to find out the how.

    Biggest drawback is probably the price - it's not a huge bag, and the only place I've thus far found them selling online has them at €210. Although that's cheaper than a dynohub isn't it? And the other thing this has going for it over the dynohub is interchangeability between bikes, as well as use by the casual summer commuter on a BSO (the type who will happily spend more on a bag than a bike, and trust me, there are plenty).

    Posted 13 years ago #

  8. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    And yes. though you do need to pedal for those.

    The solar bag can sit at the window at work or under the office lights and keep charging through the whole day every day...

    Posted 13 years ago #

  9. steveo
    Member

    The problem is that this will only generate (the assumed) 1w in perfect conditions. That is out side pointing directly at the mid day sun in July as soon as you get away from that the efficiency drops of a cliff. For a start there is only 10% of the energy available from the sun in Nov as there is in July in Edinburgh. So your 1w panel is only producing about 0.1w.

    Any idea how big the battery is?

    Tbh £200 buys you a decent 4aa emergency charger a good set of AA batteries a charger and enough electricity to run them for the rest of ones life. Buy a nice bag and an emergency charger even get a static solar charger to try but these gimmicks are invariably a waste of money.

    /grumpy old man ;)

    Posted 13 years ago #

  10. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    It says on the back:

    1500mAH polymer-Lithium
    Input: DC5V/800MA
    Output: DC5V/1A

    Posted 13 years ago #

  11. steveo
    Member

    Not a bad size, though after losses would struggle to charge an iPhone from dead to full. Assuming thats a 3.7v battery.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  12. wingpig
    Member

    What we need is for manufacturers of pseudo-practical accoutrements to stop trying to tap the solar=free+effortless concept and start producing more practical things to convert mechanical work back into electrical energy (rather than just the odd wind-up radio here or rubbish wind-up phone charger there). Seeing as most humans are capable of feats of power output which would leave even the highest-capacity D cell drained after a couple of seconds it'd be a much richer seam to harness than the sunlight available to human-scale areas at this latitude and would help people keep warm when the sun is thin on the ground.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  13. kaputnik
    Moderator

    €210 (£180) Although that's cheaper than a dynohub isn't it?

    Than the hub? No, it was £78 for hub and then whatever you want to spend on getting a wheel around it. I paid £220 for the pair of wheels - including new cassette. Could have gone much cheaper. Front wheel cost alone even on the Open Pros would be about £80 including labour, so still a few quid less than the bag.

    You could of course do it more expensive (SON hub, more expensive wheels) or cheaper (step down a few models of Shimano hub, cheaper wheels, build your own etc.)

    Posted 13 years ago #

  14. steveo
    Member

    @wingpig, problem for devices like those, apart from not existing, is that they are then competing with just taking batteries and a charger. A hiker for example might want to keep his electronics topped up via a device which draws power from walking but any increase in effort in walking would probably just push towards using more batteries or reducing speed or distance covered.

    Dynamo's are pretty unique in that the bicycle is sooo efficient drawing a few watts from the 100 or so produced makes no discernible difference to speed or effort

    Posted 13 years ago #

  15. wingpig
    Member

    Not thinking so much to siphon effort off the top whilst efforting for the purpose of achieving movement as to offer a facility for winding/stamping on/squeezing something for a few minutes solely to charge something. Dynohubs are fine for producing enough to do useful light-work for minimal extra impact whilst moving but aren't designed for harnessing every joule thrown at them and converting as much of it as possible (inefficiencies notwithstanding). Perhaps if they came in rear-hub versions which could be run whilst the rear wheel was propped off the ground with a kickstand (and where the regulator/limiter could be disengaged/switched to 'charge' mode) then a few minutes' extra energetic (static) pedalling could do some useful device-refuelling.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  16. steveo
    Member

    Ah yes I see what you mean. A slightly larger dynamo (stepper motor) that could be clipped in place would work. You'd have to balance this weight against just having more batteries. Would be very useful for a longer trip. Even just a larger hand crank would be ok, some thing that was harder to operate but gave more power in less time. Instead of 20 minutes of low nominal exertion for an hours battery you would get a 20 minute work out for a half days proper use.

    I had thought about a "sail" to convert a front wheel into a wind turbine for bike camping. Clip it on, turn the wheel to the wind and off you go, free power, little extra weight.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  17. DaveC
    Member

    Skipping to the end....

    This sounds interesting but if I need something charging and I'm on a bike I'll get a Dynamo hub, and some regulator from Maplins connected to a Mini USB plug, in a wee water resistant box on my bike.

    Leaving the bag on the window sill whilst at work? I have 4 sockets on my desk here, plenty for my radio, phone (at home thru night), bike lights (also at home thru night).....

    Posted 13 years ago #

  18. Min
    Member

    We don't have any windows at work. :-( I'd have to leave my Euro230 bag lying out in the break room. It does sound like something that might be useful for tourers if fitted to panniers though. In Italy.

    Has it charged anything yet Anth? I' dying to know. :-)

    Posted 13 years ago #

  19. kaputnik
    Moderator

    No windows Min? That's awful. I need a window to stare out of while I am contemplating to remain at peak productivity and engagement levels.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  20. Min
    Member

    It IS awful. I use my Blackberry to tell me what the weather is like outside. :-(

    Posted 13 years ago #

  21. steveo
    Member

    I was looking for something unrelated but this popped up in the search...

    Anth did you ever try this?

    Posted 12 years ago #

RSS feed for this topic

Reply

You must log in to post.


Video embedded using Easy Video Embed plugin