Setbacks

The solar panels are on their way to Gilung, Nepal and soon they will be installed. The Himalayan Light Foundation will see to the installation. But I won't be going there myself now, not at this time anyway. I managed to get caught between a car and a curb while bicycling and chose to fall onto the curb. Result, a fracure in the upper arm and a torn ligament. Doctors said not a chance to head off to Nepal next week. For the first time I can remember, I'm considering the idea of giving up bicycling and finally getting a car.

Solar Shipment

Hi everyone,

the solar shipment is on its way ! Here you can see the two units to be installed in the two community buildings in Gilung, Nepal.

Solar Lights in Nepal

The project is launched! 

The community centers in remote Gilung in Nepal have no electricity or lights, just like much of rural Nepal. This project will bring solar lights to the two community buildings.

Here is a picture of the inside of the community center.

Here is a picture of the committee members in front of the community center.

I've been trying to get the site launched for my friends who have expressly said they would like to contribute to the project, although I'd like the page to mainly serve as a gateway for information about the trip because it's set up quite well. So I hope you'll have a look just to see the specifics of the project!

Update 11.8.2013: the project is complete and the link is no longer active. I've removed the link.

Preparations

Rabies, polio and hepatitis shots today. Pills for typhoid. Purchased a Steri-pen water purifier. The iPhone's on an energy diet - two weeks already it gets all its power exclusively from 3W portable solar cells. The Nepal trip approaches.

Testing the blogging app on the iPhone

This is probably of interest only to myself. How do I maintain my blog while in the remote wilderness? I'm testing the blogger app on my iPhone. While it looks like I can blog fairly easily, it seems that I don't have the option to prepare a post offline for the time when connecting to the internet is not an option. Hmm, looks like I need to figure this out.

Testing further, i took an iPhone picture from the window of the train from where I'm writing. A grey day overlooking lake Zurich!

Portable solar cells

After a long career in photovoltaics, I finally decided it was time to get a few solar cells for personal use. Other than a few gadgets, I've never had any for home use. Since I'm an avid hiker, I decided to get a portable variety that would allow me to travel for longer journeys without the need for an external electricity supply. I'll explain this motivation in a further post. The desire is to be able to charge a camera, an iPhone and a small computer, but not all at the same time! I chose a SolarMonkey Adventurer. Rated at 3 Watts and weighing only 265g, it comes with a couple of polycrystalline silicon solar cells, an internal battery and MPPT (maximum power point tracking) circuitry. At 700mA, the rated output current is sufficient even for such a gluttonous device as an iPhone.

Today was a beautiful, sunny winter day. Time for a test. SolarMonkey's battery was completely empty when I placed it on the balcony in the sun today. While it was in the sun charging, I decided to use the iPhone until the battery was empty. That was easy. The iPhone played Pat Metheny music until it went silent. Good - no sign of life in the iPhone despite revival attempts.

And so, how did the charger perform? After letting the iPhone charge for 2 hours, the battery showed it was only one notch from being fully charged. Success!