DIY

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...

Power your Arduino Spark Core Weather Station from Solar This project is in response to a number of customers who've asked us about using solar to power their IOT sensing projects and then publish their...

New York-based climber Gaz Leah is heading down to Parque La Huasteca near Monterrey, Mexico to develop and document new routes as well as introduce at-risk youth to climbing. We're working with Gaz to power...

We met industrial designer Ryan Hetzel at this year's Outdoor Retailer and talked about the possibilities of a solar-powered tank bag. Touring motorcycles are starting to have power outputs, but many bikes...

Christopher Dutton has created a series of solar-powered and networked water level loggers to monitor the Mara river levels in Tanzania. They have three stations deployed and uploading data to the Internet now...

DIY: Solar Powered Flood Monitoring Systems A team at Chile's National Research Center for Integrated Natural Disaster Management (CIGIDEN) has built a solar powered IoT system to monitor temperature and...

We are happy to provide solar panels for the students who go through Blue Stamp Engineering's summer program. Students get to choose what to make and then post the results. Perhaps not surprisingly, solar...

We hacked a smartphone dry bag to make it a solar dry bag. In this example, we use a 6 Watt Kit, 4 foot extension cable and dry bag (try searching for  "dry audio case") to make a waterproof solar...

Ian Downard recently built a solar powered chicken coop door to make it easier to give his chickens time to be in the yard. The system is powered by our 3.4 Watt solar panel and V15 battery in Always...

Our friends at PlayWell Tek are offering more summer programs for young engineers and this year, one of the projects includes a solar powered lego tank. The tank uses our 2 Watt Solar panel and we think it is...

Another day, another proprietary charging cable. The new Vaio Flip 13 and Tap 11 cables look like this: Since there are no third party adapters for this plug yet, a customer of ours figured out an...

Let's get right to it. In November we decided to use solar power to monitor a new condo development across the street from our office. Some of us wanted to see what goes into building condos that are about a...

We've got ways to mount solar panels, zip ties, suction cups and with handlebar mounts and now we're exploring magnets. We see this as being useful for attaching panels to a tin-corrugated roof or on top of...

This is an older post which may contain outdated information. Our newest laptop battery, the V88 can be charged via USB-C. When a customer pointed us to this USB 5V to 15V boost circuit on eBay as a way to...

People in Boston have a new way to keep their phones charged. The seat-e doubles as a bench and a phone charging station. It also uses Voltaic's 3.4 Watt solar panels and our V39 USB battery. The seat-e was...

Update: We now have a complete lineup of folding solar panels. A friend of Voltaic asked us to build him an 18 Watt solar charger kit to keep his V72 laptop battery charged up in the field. We took the...