I want to design and implement a BACKPACK ( bag ) for travelers with solar power technology included .

My idea is to make a bag, that It can charge the small electronic devices on the move ( when the traveler moves with the bag, lets think he's walking from a place to place with the backpack on his back ) . This simply includes a FLEXIBLE solar panel ( can be found on Ebay ), and a battery bank ( light weight ) inside the bag .

So what I suggest is to charge,

LAPTOPS
Mobile Phones ( any model )
PDA ( any model )
Tabs ( anymodel )
Ipods and MP3 players etc

Please let me know whether this is practical, or are there any suggestion on this project . Please help .

Thanks,
Shanuka .

 

sure its practical. Its already been done by many companies.

google "solar powered backpack" and see all the ones out there already.

 

OH ! then i cant make it as a project for my uni .. m sad !

 

Solar powered blue jeans

 

A solar powered ANYTHING does not work at night, on cloudy days, in winter when the sun is low in the sky or when the solar panel is not pointing at the sun.
The solar panel should move and follow the sun across the sky in a desert in summer.

 

OH ! then i cant make it as a project for my uni .. m sad !

Make wings from your flexible panels and fly an iPhone around with the Facetime camera running. This may have been done also, but I don't think it's commercially available.

One huge problem with these things beyond what AG already identified is simple surface area. You need a lot of area for PV panel even in bright sunlight to give a satisfying amount of juice.

 

Make wings from your flexible panels and fly an iPhone around with the Facetime camera running. This may have been done also, but I don't think it's commercially available.

Lawsuits on top of lawsuits on top of lawsuits... here you come...

 

Lawsuits ...

From who? Maybe a nude sunbather or two. But I believe courts have rules you have no expectation of privacy outside your home.

 

I just meant from all the people when the iphone plane goes out of control and flies off a cliff or smashes their overpriced phone into pieces on the ground, or scuffs the apple logo, etc...

 

Ha ha, yes, there are "collateral damage" concerns, not the least of which could be the phone calls to local authorities about spy plane drones going by their windows.

A solar powered weather station that can get itself onto a cell network to deliver data would be interesting, especially if it could "beam in" a signal better than a typical cellphone, so that it could be used that much farther away.

 

I still want a solar (or wind) powered air conditioning unit.
personal or standalone

 

Wind power is a good match for an air conditioner, since shaft work for recompression of the coolant is what is needed, not so much electricity per se.

Using solar to make electricity, only to convert that back to mechanical shaft work, is just too inefficient. Old ammonia-based systems use heat to regenerate the ammonia coolant, and I think that type of system could be a good match for solar because there is no need to make electricity. You could just use direct solar heating.

Matching solar to an A/C system would be great since you tend to need a lot more AC when the sun is shining.

I'd love to have a personal cooling system that's more efficient than our human evaporative cooling, and doesn't require dehydration to stay cool. I suppose the DOD must have done some work in this area, maybe elite athletes as well.

 

I still want a solar (or wind) powered air conditioning unit.
personal or standalone

 

Hee, hee. The solar panel from a garden light produces a very low current. The little fan driven by the low current is a joke.