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Quickertek selling solar panel for iPad

by Mike Schramm May 17th 2010 at 7:30PM

Back at Macworld, I checked out a company on the show floor that made solar (photovoltaic) panels. I was hoping to see a panel for sale ready to charge the iPhone, because an easy-to-use panel at a reasonable price would have probably had me opening my wallet on the spot. Unfortunately, they only made custom-designed panels, and nothing mass market (or in my price range), so I was disappointed. But this one might be what I was looking for: Quickertek, makers of all sorts of Mac-related accessories, has adapted its MacBook "Apple Juicz" solar panel to the iPad. This provides 10 watts of sun-based power (reportedly the same as the regular iPad charger) to your magical and revolutionary device.

I don't have an iPad yet, and the price of the Apple Juicz (US$250) is still a little steep for me, even though it's probably cheap for what it is. But I am always in favor of using solar technology, and if you're doing something like camping in the middle of nowhere and using your iPad or MacBook a lot, this might be a workable solution.

If nothing else, at least we're getting closer. Someday, photovoltaic panels will be so good at grabbing light and batteries will be so good at storing the generated power that all you'll need to do to charge your iPad is go read outside in the sun for a bit.

[via Cult of Mac]

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Back at Macworld, I checked out a company on the show floor that made solar (photovoltaic) panels. I was hoping to see a panel for sale...
 

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Dan

As if the iPad overheating problems is not enough.
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-31747_7-20001749-243.html

My iPad will fry under the sun before the battery gets fully charged.

May 18 2010 at 5:05 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
fox1cm

The iPad's battery is perfect the way it is - no need for a solar panel!

May 18 2010 at 4:11 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Noah

How is solar power any cheaper than plugging my iPad into a random wall socket at my office or the airport? ;)

May 18 2010 at 11:02 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
kf9z

Not to mention you can get a 45-watt solar panel and charge controller, battery connector and DC/AC converter (90-watt) for $215 and it can be used for so much more. I went solar for most things along with a pair of 400-watt Air-X turbines and a bank of batteries with a full sine-wave inverter to power my garage and back feed my house with a transfer switch for about 2-4-hours of whole-house use on a charge w/o wind or light - much more (a full day or more) with a combination of wind and light to re-charge the set-up. $250 for a basic film panel with low efficiency if silly.

It is a uni-tasker at the price of a multi-tasker.

Just my thoughts...

D

May 18 2010 at 7:49 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Graham

The panel shown above is a PowerFilm panel. Hard to tell what size, but I find it funny when a company does some custom connector for an existing solar panel, and somehow it is suddenly worth looking at.
You can get a standard PowerFilm from companies like Modern Outpost (ModernOutpost.com), and they will make sure that it will operate ALL of your equipment, not just your iPad.

May 18 2010 at 1:49 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
basscadet

There are quite a few very cheap solar chargers on ebay. While they might not be powerful enough for the ipad, they're fine for the iphone.

May 18 2010 at 1:26 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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