New Solar Bags from Voltaic
by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 06.30.05
Voltaic solar bags and TreeHugger go way back. In fact, they both sort of grew up together, like kids living next door to one another. TH just recently passed the milestone of 2000 posts. Now it’s Voltaic’s turn for a celebration. Taking the technology and slick design, which made the original pack so popular (that it became a case study in the power of blogs), they have morphed the concept into 3 new bags. One is a Daypack, smaller than the initial backpack. Then there’s the Pouch, smaller again and uniquely designed such that it can be used as daypack or stow the shoulder straps away and carry it shoulder bag style, with your laptop inside a fully padded shell. Plus it can attach to the back of most larger rucksacks to provide solar juice on remote trips. And finally the Messenger, a more traditional format laptop bag. All sport the same ...
... config of 3 solar panels, giving 4 watts of charging grunt, suited to refueling your mobile phone (digital or satellite), PDA, GPS, iPod and even digicam. Alas notebook computer batteries are too demanding at this time. 11 adaptors come with each bag to connect to most of the above gizmos. If the sun don’t shine, you can always use the included AC or car DC charger to fill the bags’ Li-ion battery. All bags sell for $229. (disclaimer - the founders of both Treehugger and Voltaic are buddies.) ::Voltaic
The bags' logo glows when
the battery is picking up a
charge from the sun.
I am very interested in finding out when you might be offring a bag for notebook computers and such.
Thank you: Jeffrey Furlong
My solar backpack now has two lights: a flashing red LED I bought for $15 and a bright white three LED Newlite which I got for $30 from www.kansaswindpower.net. I use the lights for visibility when riding my bike at night. The Newlite panel can also power other things than the light.
They go on the backpack next to the Impeach Bush button and the Solar is Civil Defense home-made sticker.
Excellent idea!
Stop Kirchenglockenlärm:
http://www.nachtruhe.info
Excellent idea!
Stop Kirchenglockenlärm:
http://www.nachtruhe.info
Wow – these backpack sound nearly like exactly what I need. I am really into cycle touring and cannot wear backpacks, so I am wondering if there is a similar product but made for something like cycle panniers? In fact any information about power sources that I could utilise from my cycling (dynamos, wind etc) would be great.
Minor detail though: my laptop consumes 90W and these packbacks are rated at 4W, so I might be able to trickle charge it at a rate of 1 hour use to 23 hours charge (oh yeah, double that for real-time solar availability). So except for *maybe* the most energy efficient models of laptop, you can only use this for things like PDAs and such. Still not bad but not some miracle for green gadget geeks.
This is so great you can charge yours all your hand held stuff when you are always on the go. What I want to know is if you are getting a charge is there a way that your bag and hold all of that charge and then when you want you can plug something in and the power will already be there for you even if its at night. NOW thats what I need and theres your laptop problem solved too just let your bag charge up for a few days then send the charge to your laptop.
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If anyone knows a reseller in Europe please let me know. I am very interested in this backpack. As a matter of fact I am specially interested in the Li-ion battery which can probably be charged by a normal solar panel as well. As far as I checked shops the battery is not sold seperately. If anyone knows where to find it, please let me know
Rick
mamborules@xs4all.nl