This traditionally-shaped camcorder may not be
ergonomically friendly, but it is
environmentally friendly -- ostensibly, anyway. It's the HDV-T900 from Jetyo, a 720p30 model that records to SDHC memory cards through what appears to be a fixed zoom lens (its specs promise only an 8x digital zoom). The thing that makes this a conversation piece is the solar cell on the backside of the three-inch LCD display. It's hardly encouraging that the company's site doesn't say anything about how quickly it recharges the 4 AA batteries used for power, or indeed how long those batteries can power the thing in the first place. But, the site does say the current from the solar cell is 120mA, so we can do the math. Assuming you're using something like 2,500mAh AA rechargeable cells, you're looking at about 25 hours of sunlight to recharge one battery and there are, of course, four used here. Hey, sounds like a good excuse to extend your vacation to us.
posted April 25th 2010 2:43AM
capture only your "brightest" holiday memories
I see what you did there
Tim Stevens, i didn't even read the article, i just wanted to say that this is the best title ever!!!
@gargle Aww, shucks.
I guarantee those solar panels are fake and NOT connected to the batteries or device. 1) I purchased a Chinese calculator with a solar panel. I took the thing apart (out of interest) and to my horror (and at the time, surprise), found no wires from the panel to the electronics - nor the battery that was inside the case. 2) In our local city centre, there is a shop selling poor quality goods, including so called 'solar powered rock lights' (for your patio, pathway/pond edge etc.) They come with batteries, the rocks are plastic and the 2" by 1.5" 'solar' panel is just stuck onto a flat part of the rock using leaky glue. Whether or not there are any wires coming from the solar panel makes no difference. There is no way that a small cheap solar panel would generate enough to even charge 1/10th of one AA battery. And certainly not to power the cheap LED lamps that are supposed to illuminate your garden at night time.
Solar powered camcorder? Lol!
@Oflife
Only the smart ones will not buy fake stuff. Like me. AND, this is a good invention. And it is you who are slowing the development of technology. There are so many others like you, who I hate so much. So go hug a bear.
@Oflife
Well sir you are thinking about this wrong. I agree a stand alone solar charger is much smarter idea but this might come in handy. Think far away from electricity in the forest you put the camera on a motion sensor system and you can take video or photo of animals for months. Doesn't really matter how fast it will charge for this specific application this might actually work. You set the camera up and come back in a month to collect the footage.
@kyphem Without any current for the solar cell given from the Article/Source it's hard to prove, but I'm kinda sure this thing won't run "for months"... You'll film some hours and then the batteries are empty and the thing shuts off. In bright sunlight PERHAPS one more hour.. Anyways where do u want to store your months of footage?
@Kaboof Obviously you missed the motion sensor bit.
Ugh, I can picture some brain dead tech-illiterate San Francisco yuppie shoving one of these alongside an iPad in his manpurse and then pausing to put his $6 Starbucks coffee down for a moment only to better waft in the smell of his own farts.
Solar panel charging is fine, but you need a bigass panel and a whole lot of time for something with the powerdraw of a camcorder... cmon.
@Ducman69
Obvious troll is obvious.
No one said ANYTHING about the iPad.
@SolidSnake Nor San Francisco, manpurses, or Starbucks coffee. I was painting a pretty mental picture of your typical yuppie that would buy this, and you know it fits too heh! :D
Sorry guys, but there are credible solar chargers out there, but this sort of thing gives the whole concept a bad reputation. A far better idea is a large rollup solar panel that we carry with us. When visiting a coffee shop, national park or other, we unfurl the solar panel on the window sill or ground, plug in our batteries or gadgets and leave be. A 2 foot by 6" rollup panel would fit into most pockets or bags and make a difference.
Great Title!
"so we can do the math" Unless the solar array delivers the exact same voltage as a single battery, no, you can not do the math.
As an example, if the solar array is 12V and the cells you are talking about is regular 1.2V AAA cells then the optimal charge time will be only a tenth of what you calculated...
@Lunkwill
So we are left wondering perhaps
@Lunkwill Well, all we have is a 120mA current rating from the solar panel to work from, and we did the math according to the formula presented by this battery charger company:
http://www.greenbatteries.com/bachfa.html#How long to recharge
2500mAh / 120mA x 120% = 25 hours, according to them.
@TimStevens Do you mean "Simply divide the capacity of the battery by the charge rate of the charger"? Yes, that is correct, however the 120mA specified in your article is stated to be the current output from the solar cell, not the power output of any charger circuit.
Think of what you wrote about the four AA cells. If you wire them up in series then the whole pack is still the same mAh as before, however the charge time is trivially four times as long given a the same power output from the photo cell
@Lunkwill Yes, that's the output of the solar cell, and the only figure that we have to go with, really. Anything else is a guess.
And yes, the charge time is indeed four times as long, as stated above.
@TimStevens Exactly, even though the "formula" you used will give the exact same result, 25h. That was the point to show that the formula doesn't actually say anything in this case.
@TimStevens Lunkwill's point is that we know the solar panel outputs 120 mA, but we don't know the voltage. *IF* the voltage of the solar panel was around the same as the batteries - say, 1.4 volts at 120 mA - then that formula would produce the correct result. But if the solar panel's voltage is lower, it'd take longer; and if it was higher, it'd be shorter (unlikely looking at the size of it!).
The amperage rating is only half of what you need to know to calculate it. Without the voltage rating, it's really not useful.
lol wow - bandwagon has been gotten on!
the first sentence exceeds the maximum allowed number of words ending in 'ly' for one sentence.
Ugh. I can smell the crappiness.
Why does EVERY single Chinese company that pumps out these sh*tty products use the same god-awful gothic font?
This solar stuff is ridiculous.
A good solar cell (which this isn't ) can produce perhaps 150W/m^2 outdoors in direct sunlight. This is about 5cmx10cm or 1/200th of a square meter, for about 0.75W.
A rechargeable AAA (as this has, see original site) is about 1Wh, so with 4, this would have 4Wh capacity, so it would take 5 hours of direct sunlight to charge. On a cloudy day it would take 8x as long again (40h), indoors in a bright room it would take about 400h.
And that's if it's a good solar cell (it isn't) at 100% efficiency conversion/charging and the sun is directly overhead all the time.
@spin cycle Thanks for posting some actual facts up in here.
And this is why the only solution for anyone who wants solar-powered gadgets (except 'recharge your gadgets using ordinary power from a wall-socket, some of which could come from large, efficient solar generating stations') is developing gadgets that use less power.
Solar-powered calculators have worked fine for decades (I still have one that's about 20 years old), using tiny solar cells and by definition ancient technology too, and that's because calculators use virtually no power. Unless we can get camcorders to at least approach that level (relative to the appropriate size for a solar cell), which doesn't seem that likely in the foreseeable future, then an in-built solar charger won't make any sense.
They'd probably do better with a wind-up charger; you'd probably have to do an awful lot of winding for one minute of filming but it would look kind of cool! Like old hand-cranked film cameras...
I have a cheap camcorder like this one. If I just leave the batteries in it and not use it they would be dead in a month.