Millions on the East Coast Could Use One of These
07/02/2012 4 Comments
Russ Steele
According to the news, almost 2.4 million people from Illinois to Virginia were still without power Monday morning, with the biggest concentration of outages in the Washington, D.C. area.
People are flocking to Starbucks and stores with outside outlets to charge their cellphones, tablets and laptops in the Washington DC area. People are reported to be lining up at any available power outlet to charge their devices. I will bet they wish that they had one of these.
I built this solar charging device to enable us to charge our Cellphones, iPads, Kindles and MacBooks when the power goes out. At the top is a power controller, at the bottom a distribution box with two USB charging ports (white area on distribution box). It is possible to connect an inverter to a battery, not shown in the photo, to power up other devices. The panel charges the battery.
We also plan to use it to charge our trailer batteries when “boondocking” far from an electrical outlet. The back folds over the panel protecting it during travel. If you would like more information leave a comment with contact information.
About Russ Steele
Why don’t they hook up to thpose windmills and solar panels?
Distribution grid is down! Think about those Leaf owners, where do they charge the car?
One of those will never do. You can’t do seriouls heat exchange like run a fridge or AC on one of those let alone a roof full of solar cells. We only had flickering where I live but most people who are looking to find a back up source of power want to keep the fridge going so they don’t loose all the food in it. I was at a Safeway close to home that had just been reconnected after 36 hours down and all you could buy was non-perishables. Every product in the refrigerated or frozen cases and all the produce had to be thrown away. The cell phones and the Ipads can be charge off the car batteries or a trip to the air-conditioned library.
We have a generator for the frig. Car battery is a good cellphone option.