Author Phillip Stearns

How do you protect the battery? The goal of a charge circuit is to protect both the battery and your device. If you don't have charge protection, you can damage the cells on a battery or cause a fire. Please...

How (and why) do I store power? Sunlight is inconsistent and often nonexistent (think nightime) so storing power is important in many applications. In addition, many electronics are expecting a constant,...

How much solar power am I generating? A solar panel does not do anything in isolation. It needs to be connected to something. That something is called a load. A load dissipates power and converts electrical...

How do Solar Chargers work? A solar charger is a portable power system made up of a solar panel and an external battery pack. For Voltaic Systems, we pair one of our high performance, monocrystalline solar...

Voltaic System’s battery packs will take charge from solar panels, AC adapters, USB ports, even other battery packs. You can also charge them from kinetic power sources like hand-cranked or bike driven dynamos. Here’s how we did it.

There are times when you may find that you want to expand the power producing capabilities of your solar setup. This post will cover the basics of how to determine if you can combine power sources, and how to...

For those of you who don't already know about the FM3 Buddha Machine, here's the scoop: The Buddha Machine is a small plastic box that plays meditative music composed by Christiaan Virant and Zhang Jian....

We did some testing with a small inverter to see how it would work with our V60 universal laptop battery. This setup allows you to plug some regular "wall plugs" into a solar setup like you would in your home....

Update: We have a new home for charging tablets from solar. Information below may be out of date. Image by LGEPR on flickr. Tablet charging has been a top priority here at Voltaic. With the release of...

We tested two camera inserts to see how they fit in our Array Solar Laptop Charger and OffGrid Solar Backpack. Here's the short video: We tested the Domke 414 ($57 from B&H) which fits firmly inside...

Here's a guide to building a USB powered LED lamp compatible with Voltaic Systems products. This is a quick and easy way to convert the solar energy we’ve stored in our Voltaic Systems batteries into...

The Kindle Fire, Amazon’s answer to the Barnes and Noble Nook Color, is a compact 7” color tablet device that occupies a middle ground between full fledged tablet PC and eReader. There are loads of...

Voltaic Systems employee, Phillip Stearns will be teaching a 2-day class in DIY Renewable Electricity at 3rd Ward in Brooklyn, NY.  Students will learn how to charge AA batteries using our 2-Watt solar...

A while back we covered the nifty Sunnan solar powered desk lamp from IKEA, highlighting its usefulness while making note of some of the things we would like to change. In that list of possible improvements...

We love all things photography here at Voltaic and want to help all you shutterbugs out there keep your digital cameras powered through the day with clean, renewable solar energy.  We're expanding our...

At Voltaic, we’re in the process of designing our own solar light and are constantly on the lookout for small scale solar lighting products that have made their way to market to see what we like and might do...

We continually make minor tweaks to the USB output of our batteries to make sure we charge as many devices as possible. We pay particular attention to Apple products and now, with the introduction of the iPad,...

For an updated look at how to charge your digital camera from solar, view our Solar for Photography Guide. For all of you shutter bugs out there who are looking for solar solutions for charging your...