Category: Solar Workshop Experiments
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Project: Portable DC Toaster Oven – direct solar electric cooking to go
Hi folks, hope you’re doing well. In what is possibly a first, I am unveiling a new prototype invention – a mini PV solar electric toaster oven. It is lightweight, portable and I think would be fairly cheap to produce. It easily bakes or roasts bread, meat, vegetables and whatever else – all day using…
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Mini 100 Watt solar electric oven prototype – Simple Solar Cooking!
Can a single 100 Watt 12V solar panel supply enough power to cook or bake food by itself? I’ve been thinking about this question for years. A simple portable electric oven that operates off of such a small amount of power could change everything. Finally, after a long wait, the opportunity came to test the…
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Risky Experiments in my Solar Workshop – Part 2: lithium cell phone batteries
Some time ago, a friend sent me a box of discarded lithium-ion cell phone batteries he had no use for. They would have ended up in the landfill otherwise. So I started a “side project” in which I intended to experimentally use these batteries for solar power. Normally I use LiFePo4 cells for solar power,…
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Low Voltage Solar Panels can cook food directly – And why it matters
Did you know it’s possible to cook food directly off low voltage solar panels? No inverter, no high voltages, no battery, no charge controller. It’s technically feasible, and I have done it several times now with prototypes developed in my solar workshop. The simplicity and efficiency of such a setup is nothing short of astounding.…
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Are wall mounted solar panels worth it?
I took the chance of mounting some 100w monocrystalline solar panels on the wall of my metal building (solar workshop). If interested, check out my video of the setup at the bottom of the page. I really needed some extra power for lab experiments and so forth, but did not want the burden of more…
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Risky Solar Experiments in my shop – part 1
I often wondered what would happen if I took a 12V solar panel with its high VoC (Voltage Open Circuit) and plugged it straight into a netbook or laptop. This is risky because solar panels have an unregulated voltage output. So I took a netbook that was available and tried plugging in a 100W solar…
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