It looks like Voltaic will be releasing a 14w solar panel bag, a huge step up from their, largely useless, at least for UMPCs, 4W bad. I hope its not a typo as the three-panel setup look exactly the same as before.

If it really is 14W then I’m interested. Well almost. The design is a little on the ugly side and the price of $559 means I could actually buy a stack of spare Li-ion batteries that, charged, would run a UMPC or one of the new Menlow-based MIDS showing up at CES for a few weeks or more!

This story is from CNet and the author mention in the article that they will be running a story about solar laptops soon. That should be interesting and one to look out for.

Thanks to Matt for the tip.

In a recent comment here, someone asked why the Lead-Acid battery was needed. Its probably not too clear in the video why I use it so I reproduce my answer (which comes from the best of my knowledge!) here.

There are two main problems with charging Li-Ion batteries from Solar panels.

Firstly, Li-Ion batteries (in notebooks and battery bank) charge using a constant current (stream) of power. For common notebook batteries and battery banks such as the Tekkeon MP3400, this is around 1A. A lot of the 12V portable solar panels only reach this power at high sun levels meaning you can only use them for a few hours mid-day. In fact a 12W panel might not be enough to even start the charging process. Secondly, if you have a huge panel that could deliver, say, twice as much power as needed, its not used. Only the power needed is taken. The rest is wasted.

These two problems can be overcome at the expense of weight with a lead-acid battery.
L-A batteries are more flexible. You can charge them with a trickle and also with a higher charge rate. They are much more suited to pairing with a solar panel. The problem with this solution is weight. Small 12v L-A batteries are over 2KG in weight!

What’s needed is a flexible Li-Ion battery charging solution. Currently there are no products on the market that can archive this but I’m searching hard!

In summary there are 2 solutions.
1 – Get a panel powerful enough to charge a Li-ion battery at 70% of its rated output. For example, a 25W panel and the Tekkeon MP3400 Li-ion battery. This will give you about 4 hours of charge time on a sunny summer day.  (Mid-Europe) This should be enough to completely fill up the Li-ion battery.
2 – Go for a heavier solution with a L-A battery and give yourself more charging flexibility.

Despite the terrible weather forecast (rain, clouds, heat, thunder) It’s time to finalize the pack-list and buy the last items, prepare the solar equipment (which should turn up today) and do some test loading and test cycling. Over the last weekend I fitted the baggage to the bike and loaded it up with random heavy items including the new tent, sleeping bag etc. There should be no problem with space or loading weight. I also tested out the tent and it seems OK although some dampness came through from the floor. Is that normal? I’m surprised.

I’ve written the pack-list in Google docs and shared it for everyone so you can always see the latest version. Its organized into sections. Feel free to take a copy for your own use.

View the pack-list here.

I will go through it and weigh each section before I go and add that to the pack-list. Despite the sub 1kg PC, it won’t be a light load! Here’s the list of electronic equipment I’m taking.

12v AA battery charger,12v charger for Nokia phone,12V lead-acid battery (70W/hr),Adaptor cables and tips, Batteries 8xAA for camera, Batteries (2xAA for GPS), Camera case, Camera USB cable, DC-DC adaptor, Digital Camera + 2GB mini-SD card, GPS logger and holder, GPS serial cable and USB-serial adaptor, Li-ion battery (56W/hr), Mini battery tester, Multimeter (voltage, amps, sun, temp), N800 (spare web-access kit), Nokia headphones / adaptor. , Nokia phone (6280) + 2GB mini-SD card, Nokia USB cable, Passive USB mini-hub, Solar panel (25W) +cable kit, Spare mobile phone (voice only), Standard UMPC battery, Torch, Tripod, UMPC (Samsung Q1b) + Extended battery, case + keyboard, USB LED Lamp.

Later today  I should have more details about the solar panel/battery to post. Pictures too.