How To: Make a portable solar powered USB charger with Altoids

Make a portable solar powered USB charger with Altoids

Check out this Greener Business Show video tutorial on how to make a portable solar powered USB charger with an LED flashlight inside an Altoids tin can. You will see in this episode how to modify a solar path light into the Altoids tin so that you can have a nifty LED flashlight and so you can charge your iPod or cell phone in the gleaming sunlight.

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12 Comments

Great job, just that the light made things more complicated and seems almost not worth the complexity that comes along with it. I would probably just leave out the light (and the photo-resister and the switches). But great idea!

what kind of photoresister would i need radioshack said there are many values and styles?

where can i buy the light? homedepot or lowes local hardware store here in southern californis

Great Video. Can u send me a schematic for that? I really would like to see one

dude that is awsome does it work on mp3s

I don't think this would work because that solar cell is a 4v intended on charging only 2AA batteries. You would need to wire it so you had two in parallel and two in series for charging. Maybe it can switch from "solar charging" mode to "usb mode" (which puts all 4 batteries in series).

so did it work? how are the batteries connected?

dont u need a diode to prevent the batteries from leaking?

need schematic of the circuit please anyoneee

im thinking about making this but i dad says that it might fry my ipod or my phone. is it true? have you chargered anything with it before?

This is actually a more expensive project than you said. I just went to radio shack and the components cost about $25, and 4 AA batteries were 17$,

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