DIY

Our products are built to be highly portable, but we're not always traveling -- so how do you get the most out of a small solar power system? I wanted something that was as convenient as plugging into the wall...

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...

EEWeb recently interviewed a few of us here at Voltaic. You can read the full interview here to learn more about what we're working on, what keeps us up at night and our favorite hardware tools. The picture...

As we prep to get our solar MacBook chargers back in stock, we got together in our Brooklyn conference room to make some MagSafe adapters. They are not works of art, but they are functional. We splice used...

Hurricane Irene is coming! Here in the NYC area, the crazy rush for last minute supplies has depleted stores of “D” and “C” cell batteries commonly used in portable radios and flashlights. In...

Here's a quick video tour of our Switchable Circuit Boxes. It starts out a bit out of focus, but settles in after a few seconds. We use the circuit boxes inside our products. They also allow DIYers to combine...

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,...

If you've always thought, "I can build that!", now you can. The whip-smart crew at Adafruit has built an open hardware solar charger kit that has been thoroughly vetted. We're pretty excited that this is...

We met Chris Jefferies a few weeks back at Maker Faire. Turns out he is using our small solar panels to power wireless sensor networks. Chris is using open source software and hardware that could be used in...

John Seefeldt is designing and implementing public installations that run on renewable resources. His first project has three of our small solar panels embedded in the roof of a street vendor's cart in...

After two trips to Home Depot and a few more hours than expected, we completed our booth for the Bay Area Maker Faire. In the spirit of DIY, we assembled a wall from Voltaic shipping boxes. In addition to...

We shot a quick video of the DIY Dynamo charging our external battery that we covered in a previous post. It is connected up to a dual multimeter test box that Phillip worked up. Note that the dynamo is...

The New York Times had an article about the increase in use of wireless sensors to monitor infrastructure like bridges and buildings. Not surprisingly, many of them are using small solar panels to power the...

John in Arkansas is doing some experimentation using capacitors to store power for LED lighting. He's connecting one of our small solar panels (6Volt, 2 Watt) to a variety of capacitors and using those...

A group of engineering students at University of Michigan designed their own solar charger using our 2 Watt solar panels. They have a couple ideas in here that we like. The first is to mount...

When we found a stash of 10Volt panels in our warehouse move, we made them available at a pretty good price (2 for $18) hoping folks would find a good use for them. Well, Josh Brown from Action Santa Cruz did....

We believe LEDs are going to be one of the most transformative technologies of the next twenty years. In the developed world, they will eventually replace fluorescent and incandescant lights. In the developing...

Many motorcycles do not have a cigarette lighter adapter which leaves a lot of riders without power for their phone or other electronic devices. Lief Ellis mounted our 2 Watt solar panel on the back seat...