We sometimes need a lightweight way to track power production of our panels in places that are far from an electrical outlet. In this post, we show you how to design a voltage, current and luminosity data...
Tutorial: Solar Power for Raspberry Pi This post will walk you though how to protect your Raspberry Pi while powering it from a solar-powered system, and provide some tips for reducing the power consumption....
Direct solar charging from a solar panel without any intermediate battery reduces complexity and weight of the system, but there are several challenges to making it work consistently across all phones. We...
Particle Electron Power Consumption How much power does the Particle Electron consume? When designing a solar-powered IoT project, it is always important to have a good real-world sense for how much power...
Hi there folks, In this post, I'm going to talk about building a simple solar powered cloud-connected weather station using the Particle Electron. I'll also discuss the tradeoffs between the different power...
Tutorial: Power Consumption for Time Lapse with Motion Control Complicated time lapse camera moves require a lot of power. Camera batteries, motion controllers, tablets/computers, and motors all require...
Solar Charger Peace Corps Discount Voltaic no longer makes laptop charging systems and has discontinued its Peace Corps discount. We appreciate the opportunity to charge so many Peace Corps volunteers'...
LittleBits are a set of small electronic toys that allow kids (and adult engineers like myself) to easily build electrical inventions. There are different types of power, input, and output components that can...
Solar Panel Longevity: 2 Year Update Often our customers ask "How long can the panels stay in the sun before I should take them down?" Sure the technical answer is that the panels can last 8-10 years in the...
We are always excited to learn about new products that equip adventure-seekers in a more sustainable, green way. One of these trends that we've seen grow over the past few years is the emergence of...
Makers and engineers all over the world are using our solar panels to power their DIY microcontroller projects, but until recently no one had designed a printed circuit board and launched a successful...
We recently collaborated with Nicholas Johnson to build a solar-powered air quality sensor that sends real-time information to the web for anyone to see via the cellular network. This project shows the...
In cooperation with Nicholas Johnson, we built a dust sensor that operates roughly 24x7 and publishes the results consistently to the web via GSM. The project combines an inexpensive air quality dust sensor...
DIY: Waterproof Case for Solar Powered Projects This post outlines the steps necessary to build your own waterproof case for solar Arduino (or Raspberry Pi) projects that you want to leave outdoors. We've...
The PIXO charger has been discontinued. We now offer alternative ways to charge both AAs from USB and camera batteries from USB. Ever wanted to charge a DSLR camera battery while off-grid but only had a...
DIY Solar Powered Water Quality Sensor Every now and then while scrolling through tech blogs and DIY sensor projects, the Voltaic team is pleasantly surprised to see our solar panels highlighted as the main...
Our friends across the river in Manhattan at Adafruit have made a new video explaining how solar power works, and used our products to demonstrate! If you've ever been curious how solar panels generate...
Guest judge Darren Alff of Bicycle Touring Pro selected this month's winner, Christine Gilbert. The bicycle touring route from France to the Black Sea is relatively straightforward, but throw in 2 kids aged 1...
