Category: Gadgets

Solar powered Kudocase for iPad uses photovoltaic ink technology

Now you can have the worthiest eco-friendly cases for your iPad: Kudocase

It is a solar-powered protective case for iPad 2 and 3. It uses photovoltaic ink technology to produce power from sunlight.Kudocase has the capacity grab energy from both outdoor and indoor light.

Kudocase comes with a powerful 10,000 mAh battery.It can also store additional power, which you can use to charge your smartphone, camera or music player.The solar-powered case sports a built-in HDMI port.

You can stream content from the tablet on external projectors and TVs without taking it out of the case.The case is produced now only in black color.

In future,Kudocase could be produced in gray, blue, pink and green colors.The case will be sold for $190 and pre-orders will start on May 11, 2012.

Solar powered car Bluetooth kit

You’ll no more need messy wire or cables and no need to recharge.

With the new Solar Powered car Bluetooth kit, all you need to do is sticking this device to the inside of your windshield and pair it to your mobile phone.

You now have the safest and most convenient way to talk and answer calls while driving.

If your phone has voice recognition you can even make calls by simply saying the contact’s name!

The Solar Powered Car Bluetooth Kit announces the caller name or number before you answer or reject it, making sure you don’t answer unwanted calls while driving!

This Solar Powered car Bluetooth doesn’t require batteries, thanks to eco friendly solar charger!

It has dimensions: 89mm Diameter x 45mm Depth and a Bluetooth Version 2.0.

You can buy it for just 20 euro.

How to make a solar powered charger

To build a solar powered charger you need to follow a few steps and to use some basic equipment.

Solar panels are available at affordable prices and in all possible sizes.

It’s not complicated to build a solar powered charger. You’ll see in the next steps:

1.Collect the required tools
To make a solar powered charger you will need tools like: AA batteries, Battery holders, a USB extension a/a cable, electrical tape, glue gun or tape to hold the pieces in place,terminal strip or soldering iron, blocking diode, a drill, a 6 volt solar panel.

2.Select the diode
Standard diodes drop the voltage by 0.6 V, while the Schottky diode drops it by 0.2 V which can be a deciding factor in whether the charger works or not. So it’s better to choose a standard diode which will ensure quality of the functioning of the charger.

3.Cutting the USB cable
To build the kit, you have to cut the USB cable at the end which has the jack and remove everything except the red and black wire. This cable will be used in constructing the circuit.

4. Test the solar panel
To be sure that is working, check the solar panel before connecting it to the circuit.
It should yield the output of 2 volt inside the room and 2.5 volt in bright sunlight.

5.Sticking
The next step is to stick the pieces to make a circuit. Solder the red wire of the cable to the diode and then the diode to the red wire from the solar panel. In the next step solder the black wire from the solar panel to the cable. This completes the step of soldering. Soldering creates a serial connection which adds the voltages together, giving an output between 4 and 5 V, which is the required voltage for operation of a standard charger.

6.Drilling
You need to drill a hole for the cables to make it pass through the solar panel.

7.Setup
This step involves the fitting of the components of the solar charger into the project box.

8.Tested the completed solar charger
All you have to do now is to connect any one of the gadgets with minimal power requirement to the finalized solar charger to test it out. The solar panels need to be exposed to bright light. If the solar panel does not get ample light, it will not function appropriately. It’s better to turn off the gadget while charging; it will increase the life of the solar panel.

Solar powered charger – efficient and flexible

Solar powered chargers have the serious potentiality to defy the main electricity grids, at least for charging of small appliances.

Designer Nikolay Bastrakov has made use of existing technologies to create his own version of a solar charger, whose intrinsic system counters the conventional problems to efficiently generate higher degree of power output.

He designed one of the world’s most efficient solar powered chargers.

This device is based on the user convenience of compactness, portability, and aesthetics.

The main form can be easily attached to a backpack because it has a mobile battery.

The compact form was made from silicone with an additional coating of the polymer film to form a singular structural element.

The designer had used thin film solar cells, which were assembled on a common substrate, and this substrate was connected to the main control unit housed in a silicone cell.

The advantage of thin film solar cells is to be effective on even cloudy days.

The device has a control unit which includes a converter, a small battery, micro-processor for processing the information received from the sensors.

This display system utilizes electronic ink.

This type of display forms an image does not emit and reflect light.

The bendable control unit can be attached to bags and backpacks to accentuate upon their degree of portability.

You can be informed about your house energy usage with the new Interactive Carbon Calculator

If you want to know how much energy you use throughout the year, you can find now with the new Interactive Carbon Calculator House.

This little new invention use animatronics and light-up parts and two live displays that throw up information, changing according to the energy-saving systems you add and deduct from your home-grid.

The ICCH is portable and powered by rechargeable batteries and he also includes a thermostat dial, a washing machine dial, an energy saving bulbs switch and a load of similar features that you can add and remove from the home energy systems.

It has dimensions 70cm W x 60cm D by 80cm H.Weights 20kg.

The Interactive Carbon Calculator House is a great way to keep users informed and entertained, while providing education of a green life.

The first solar powered netbook by Samsung

Samsung intends to introduce a solar powered netbook – Samsung NC215S in the Russian market.

The netbook is eco-friendly, has solar panels and a battery life of around 14.5 hours.

Also he has 1 GB RAM, is powered by Intel ATOM N570 (166 GHz) and has a 10 inch display.

It has LED display and has an effective anti-reflective coating on it, which is said to give very colorful and vivid images even in direct sunlight.

With only two hours spent under the sun, the eco-friendly netbook could preserve the charge for an hour.

With this solar powered netbook the carbon dioxide emission into the atmosphere could be reduced significantly when compared to other exclusively electric- powered netbooks.

The solar netbook is an excellent option for those who want to take it to parks for a picnic or such, for direct sunlight is plenty for this.

Samsung will introduce this new solar powered netbook in Russia and U.S in the first week of July and in Europe after that.

The price of the new solar powered netbook in U.S would be $399 while 13999 Rubles in Russia.

Water your garden automatically using solar panels

Your garden will not be thirsty of water when you’re gone.

A new concept for gardens, the Garden Sitter, is a solar powered system, programmable rain barrel irrigation system that is capable of watering a garden for months together, without any sort of human intervention.

The system was designed by Gary Lee of Edenton, North Carolina.

Gary Lee designed his very own solar rainwater harvesting irrigation system, then he turn around and makes it available to the public.

The system is powered by solar energy, which makes it more acceptable among the increasingly environment conscious population.

The system is equipped with a North Carolina Cypress box which contains 5 watt solar panel. It also has a 7 amp charge controller and battery. The LED lights attached to it, sum up the status of charging.

You can set the time according to your convenience and shoo off the nightmare of a destroyed garden.

The construction of the system, it consists of twin barrels and has a holding capacity of 2600 gallons.

It can be used throughout the growing season and is expected to save an estimated 5000 gallons.

This is a magnificent invention because uses a renewable source of energy to function and the other that Garden Sitter is save water, a bare necessity that is becoming increasingly expensive around the world.

IBM software makes green buildings

In the future our apartment homes will be a lot more efficient than they are today.

New systems like IBM’s latest software will help users keep tabs on just how much energy they’ve been using, helping cut down unnecessary electricity usage during peak hours, indirectly cutting short electricity bills by considerable lengths.

This new software from IBM monitor how much energy residents use and check the energy consumption of heating systems, cooling systems, ventilators, refrigerating systems and the HVAC-R too.

Whit these new inventions buildings will go greener and more energy-efficient.

Illuminate your swimming pool with solar powered lights

There is no need to swim in the dark; you can illuminate your swimming pool perfectly well using solar energy instead.

These solar powered lights are very efficient, highly water resistant and they will keep your pool without an extensive electricity bill.

The solar powered lights have solar panels on the top that soak in the sun’s energy during the day time storing it all in internal rechargeable batteries.

During the dark hours the lights then glow, using the energy collected during the day.

These lights are using LED’s with 140 lumens capable of illuminating a space extending out to 1,000′ sq and also work as a thermometer for your pool, with an LCD on the top that shows the water temperature in the pool.

Easy to attach, this solar powered “solar pool light” is available for $180.

A new trend: Solar powered handbag

The interactive design firm, Diffus created a new innovation of solar powered handbag.

The glittering solar powered handbag use as design elements solar panels attached to it.

With the help of Swiss embroidery company Forster Rohner and the Alexandra Institute, Diffus wired 100 tiny solar panels onto the bag’s exterior , enough to generate power for your cellphone or other mobile device.

When the bag is opened, the fiber optics are activated and illuminating it during dark hours, allowing you to pick out your keys from your bag at night without fidgeting around.