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Old 05-03-07, 10:14 AM
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Collie
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Originally Posted by mtnroads
You've basically got the formulas correct, but there are two areas of concern. The first is whether you can actually trickle charge that battery - is it a Li-ion or NiMh?
THE BATTERY IS LITHIUM-ION


Originally Posted by mtnroads
I think 12v will not take the charge to full. Remember on a trickle charger the voltage is high, they just dribble off the amps as it reaches full charge. In your case it is a 19v battery
ACTUALLY THE WALL CHARGER TRANSFORMER IS 19VOLTS BUT THE BATTERY IS RATED AT 11.1VOLTS; 4AMPS

Originally Posted by mtnroads
so you need more voltage to "push" the electrons in there. And there is no way to get that without going through the 110v wall charger transformer which has all kinds of losses. Some laptops have 12v adapters I believe, but again they are not very efficient. Of course you could look for a 24v panel (larger sizes) or hook two of those little guys in series - that would do it I suppose, but again I'm not sure of the battery constraints.

The other thing is solar panels only deliver full current when the angle to the sun is within a few degrees of directly perpendicular, and it drops off fairly fast when it isn't. So getting that 15 hrs of "good" sunlight will take at least 2 days mid summer, and you will end up fussing with it constantly, especially if you are on the move. Forget it in winter. There are some flexible solar panels made by Uni-Solar or someone like that that are sold at RV and boating supply houses - you might look at one of those - far better output although a bit larger.
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