Solar USB Charger

So I was watching all of Jaimie's video about making a Giant Robot and other stuff (see the Jamius.com link in the sidebar) and he has a video about how to make a solar USB charger. The very same day that I saw that video, woot.com was having a wootoff and I happened to get some Coleman solar panel thingies that are meant for keeping your car battery charged. They were only $12.99 each, and they are 100mA and 15 volts.

I followed Jainie's instructions, and made my own USB charger. It only took 15 minutes. Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of everything before I started, and since I have some heat shrink tube covering the soldered bits, you can't see how it is wired. Just watch the video linked above.

This is the finished USB charger.

Closeup of the part I made (7805 regulator and USB connector).

I tested it out on my cell phone and my iPod and it worked for both. So rad, and so easy!

Pounding and moving rocks.

So the stuff in my previous update was actually from yesterday. I just didn't post it until today. Here is the stuff I did today in the backyard.

Here is the landing cleared of rocks. There were just loose rocks mostly, so I just had to move them. A lot of them will be used for making the steps between here and the upper area.

Here you can see where I moved the rocks from the landing to. Also up there above is where I'll be placing the first solar panels. It's hard to see, but the edge of my property and the top of the hill are right at the top of this picture. I'll be building a wooden frame to put the panels onto that will have them up about 3-4 feet off the ground. That will make it so they will have clear sky all around them to get the most hours of sun hitting them.

Sorry for this crappy picture. This is where I had to do a lot of pounding on the rocks to get them loose. If you look at the pictures in the previous update you can see what this used to look like. Again, most of these now loose rocks will be used to make the steps that will be going here.

I was able to climb up to the upper area, and this is a view looking down from there. You can kind of see the two semi flat areas where I have cleared and pounded rocks. This also gives a sense of how steep the slope is. There is still about 10 more feet going up behind me.

This is taken from the same spot as the previous picture. Looking at the back of my house. This is still looking down a little. If I look straight out I am about eye level with the very top part of my that skylight on my roof (two story house + about 3 feet for that skylight).

I couldn't get a decent picture from here of where the solar panels will go, but I'll get one another time when it's daytime.

Clearing the way for my planned solar project.

So this is the view from my back door looking at the steps that go up the hill that is about 2/3rds of my backyard. Click the image to zoom in and see the notes on there.

Here is a closeup of those steps. As you can see I need to clear a bunch of bushes and tree branches out of the way of the steps.

The view from the top step you can see in the previous picture. As you can see it is all broken and mostly a pile of rocks. There is a small landing under those rocks and a section of wall made out of rock and concrete.

And this is a view of where I want to make the steps go to. There are actuall a couple of steps up there that haven't completely fallen apart, but I can't get to them yet.

So I got to clearing the branches. It took a couple of hours. Some of them were filled with sharp spikey things I got poked a few times.

Okay, so here is the view up the steps after I cleared the branches and stuff.

Theres the pile of rocks I need to dig up.

And here's more rock I have to dig up. You can also see the few more steps up there that I want to get to.

Chainmail

I'm using this 14 guage aluminum electric fence wire. It's more sturdy than I was expecting. I got it from amazon for $50 bucks delivered.

Here is a shot of my tools and what I've gotten done after a couple hours. I wind the wire up into coils using the drill. I get abour 8 inches of tightly wound coil that I stretch out to about a foot and a half before I cut it with the snipper things. Then I use those other two pliers to bend them into rings and fit them together into a 4 in 1 european chainmail pattern. I have 1/4, 5/16, and 3/8 inch drillbits. Currently I am using the 5/16 size, and I like the size it ends up being. I'll probably make some bracers or cuffs using the 1/4 size (it'll make it heavier).

Here's a close-up of the piece so far.

I'll post an update each week with my progress.