Hi Simone, We've had good success running netbooks off of solar power systems and batteries. Look for the netbooks that advertise 8-10 hrs of battery life since they will use the least power. You can buy a 12v car charger on eBay for almost any netbook. Double check that a 12v charger exists for the netbook you want though, there is often a lag between the netbook being released and the car chargers being cheaply available. I'd get 2 in case one breaks and make sure to bring some spare fuses for the charger. You can also also get an iGo or similar 12v car adapter and use that. I'm not sure how efficient any of those systems are compared to building one yourself which is easy enough to do. Get a voltage regulator like this: ( http://www.dimensionengineering.com/anyvolt3.htm). Then go to Radio shack with your charger to find the right size power tip for your computer. Some of the older netbooks take 12v but the newer ones mostly seem to take 19v. If you are charging the netbook off an external 12v solar charged battery, the car charger takes care of up-regulating the voltage to 19v.
You can get a rough estimate of how much power your netbook uses by looking in the specifications for the battery size (usually measured in milliamp hours mAh, amp hours - Ah, or watt hours - Wh) and then looking at estimated or tested run times. Divide the run time into the battery and you get a measure of amps or watts the computer uses. If you can't find the battery specs, look for replacement batteris for that computer, they often list the battery amp hour size explicitly. Knowing that also helps for buying external batteries since it will let you estimate how much run time you can get from any other battery system you buy. For example my ASUS has a 63Wh / 5600 mAh battery and runs 8-10 hours so at the lowest power usage it will be pulling about 6 watts. I'd recommend 30% to all your calculations since you're always better off rounding up when calculating solar power and battery usage (i.e. assume everything will use power more than you calculated and your solar will produce less than you thought) We've used ASUS netbooks in very hot and very cold weather without problems, but they are usually in a weather proof housing so I can't vouch for their reliability in wet and dust. You can buy well engineered battery/solar solutions that are designed for expeditions - they are very nice but cost more than wiring something together yourself. The DIY version is to get some LiFEPO4 battery packs - they are light (as batteries go) and last a couple thousand charges. Here's one option: http://www.batteryspace.com/128vlifepo4batterypacks.aspx). Make sure you get a solar charge controller that's designed for those batteries. Also, note that the fully charged voltage on LIFEPO4 batteries can be 14v or higher so make sure anything you plug directly into it is rated up to 15v (or whatever you newly charged battery is putting out). Some prefab battery and solar charging systems: http://www.goalzero.com/ http://store.bruntonoutdoor.com/portable-power/ http://www.humanedgetech.com/shop/home.php?cat=4 Hope that helps. Tim --- Tim Brown http://Time-science.com <http://time-science.com/> - Innovative Image Technologies http://www.gigavision.org - Gigapixel timelapse systems [email protected] Office: (801) 893-1314 | (866) 411-3836 Cell: (801) 554-9296 On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 8:16 AM, Simone Whitecloud < [email protected]> wrote: > I'm looking for advice for bringing a laptop-powered hand-held > photosynthesis system into the backcountry. It's a CI-301. Any advice would > be greatly appreciated. I am considering purchasing a netbook because they > are light weight and affordable. Any experience doing this? I work in wet > and windy conditions with occasional sunshine, so I'm a little worried about > dust and moisture. > > Also, I would love advice on light weight systems for solar charging a > netbook/laptop. > > Thank you! > Simone Whitecloud > PhD Candidate > Dartmouth College > New Hampshire 03755 >
