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an idea I came up with the other day... opinions?

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I don't know if anyone would like to try this or implement this in anyway... and I hope I at least get some credit if it has not been thought of yet... but, has anyone thought about getting a small flexible solar cell that would charge rechargeable batteries in a laser. the solar cell would wrap around the shaft of the laser host and charge the batteries.

any opinions on this idea? how would it go about being put to use? I'm very open to suggestions so any are welcome.
 





Re: an idea I came up with the other day... opinio

Well, it's a good idea, except that I don't often leave my laser lying in the sun when I'm not using it... Not to mention adding lithium charging circuitry would make the laser pretty bulky.

It'd take hours in the direct sunlight to charge it and you'd need to design some kind of boost circuit to power a lithium ion battery charger, and all that extra circuitry would be hard to fit inside of a host.
 
Re: an idea I came up with the other day... opinio

lol. I see what you mean about having weak power to charge the batteries. maybe this is something for the future when better cells are created for harnessing the energy of the sun.
 
Re: an idea I came up with the other day... opinio

What if it suddenly starts raining? Uh oh, lol.

Much safer and easier to just have some solar cells that charge batteries, so your nice expensive laser can be nice and safe in its case :)
 
Re: an idea I came up with the other day... opinio

The only reason I'd tolerate a solar cell wrapped around a laser barrel is that it might make the barrel look cooler, kind of like those marbled anodized barrels. Otherwise, solar cells produce an incredibly meagre amount of power, and on the rounded geometry of those barrels it'd be even worse.
 
Re: an idea I came up with the other day... opinio

Since laser pointers are the kind of thing that gets a few minutes of use every day or so, I could see a solar cell producing enough power to top up the batteries assuming minor use, but that's it.
 
Re: an idea I came up with the other day... opinio

yeah, I wonder if they will have smaller, more powerful cells in the future. All together I was just curious because if we could get a solar cell to charge the batteries well enough, you'd never have to take your batteries out again. just stick it to the front of your jacket or pants with velcro during a sunny day and let it charge up and play with it when it starts to get dark. lol.
 
Re: an idea I came up with the other day... opinio

lol could you charge a solar cell with a high power blueray? lol
 
Re: an idea I came up with the other day... opinio

icebong said:
lol could you charge a solar cell with a high power blueray? lol

Nope, most solar cells don't like UV light.

As for the idea.... Well I guess it could work, but isn't bad to leave your laser out in the heat? It would have to be a patch which is separate from the laser, connected through a wire or whatever, so that you can just place the pad in a sunny area with your laser a few feet away, staying nice and.....uh....cool.

The whole Velcro idea would probably work pretty well, that would be your best bet.


Perhaps, even better, *GASP* is just a plain old solar powered battery charger, as Murudai said. ;D
 


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