Next up was sorting out the charging connector & control switches for the Lantern; There will be an on/off lockout switch, plus a momentary switch. The four cells in the Lantern head can be charged via the on-board micro USB charging circuit.
During another raid on the scrap bin, I found some nice corrugated alloy sheet, which had a nice depth in which the switches could reside. The momentary switch is flowed onto an old XML 16mm star, and both switches are backed with an adhesive foam strip.The assembly was then attached to the side panel with machine screws.
The Chassis of the solar panel will house some USB converters, which take thier power directly from the panel. These will supply power for the other components, & allow external devices such as 'phones to be charged from the Shack.
With the main power modules & switches sorted out, Jack insulated the bases of the boards with kapton tape, prior to epoxying everything into place. The USB modules have adhesive backing foam attached, to aid in ridgidity once the plate is re-attached to the chassis.
After the epoxy had set, it was time to see if the USB modules were working. The panel was outputting around 20v, but did not appear to be producing much current.
Plugging a USB test meter into any of the modules showed the correct USB voltage, but there was not even enough current to power the backlight of the test module...
So either I have a faulty panel, or my complete lack of knowledge in this field has come to the surface
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11-11-18
With another panel on it's way, I turned the focus onto the Lantern part of the build. I wanted to keep the whole "Shack" reasonably compact, so a solid lantern body was not going to work.
I had the idea of making the lantern body out of fabric, so it could be retracted into the Shack when packed away.
An off-white semi-transparent cloth offcut was sourced from my local friendly canvas shop, & was cut to size to form the sides of the Lantern.
I then made a frame from the composite sheet to attach the cloth to the face of the Lantern head, & fabricated the bottom rail from a length of brazing rod, which funnily enough was brazed together....
The first attempt to join the cloth ends together didn't go too well, so another length of fabric was cut to size. It was a little windy, so Jack actually made himself useful as a paperweight, whilst trying to remove the epoxy mixing stick from his boot....
With the second piece of fabric joined nicely, it was carefully attached to the upper frame;
With the upper half completed, the lower rail was placed in position, & glued in. The fabric was wrapped around the rail, & super glued together.
In the last picture below, Jack is seen holding up the finished Lantern body. It appears that he's not having much luck with the super glue, & we know how hard that stuff is to get off skin....
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