DIY Solar Cell Phone Charger #2. Updated and WORKING WELL!

My first solar cell phone charger described in the previous blog posts (1, 2) looked like it worked, but it didn't charge my phone's battery. After talking to youtubers who make solar chargers, I came to a conclusion that my first charger doesn't have a strong enough current. So, I decided to make a new solar cell phone charger considering advice from youtubers, and this post will show and tell what exactly I did and show the video that proves that it actually worked this time.

Solar Panels for a House in Indiana. Calculations

Part of my project was to calculate how much electricity can solar panel installation on a house in Greencastle, IN, USA, create and whether it would be enough for people's consumption.

How did I go about doing it?

TESTING: Update on my Solar Cell Phone Charger

As you could see from my video testing if solar cell phone charger worked, you can see that it charges my cell phone. However, while it charges it, it doesn't charge it even one bar up of the battery. It took me a while to figure out where the problem was.

What are solar panels made off?

My previous blog post mentions components of solar panels. I recently came across Active Solar website that has an awesome visual representation of how a mineral called "quartz" (second most abundant mineral on Earth) turns into solar panels with images of all transformation stages. Check it out here.

Disclaimer: I am not trying to promote the website or a company called Active Solar.

Current Technologies to Harness Solar Energy

There are many technologies that use solar energy to produce electricity or heat in one or the other way. I would like devote this post to describe various photovoltaic solar panels and concentrated solar power.

How to solder?

While making a solar cell phone charger, I came across one problem that prolonged the time of making it. The problem was me not knowing how to solder. As it appeared (oh really?!), soldering process is not as easy as take a soldering iron, warm up wires and connect them together. I honestly thought that this is how the process happens.

Soldering takes practice. This video has a good explanation on how and why solder correctly:

Ready solar cell phone charger

Steps to make a solar cell phone charger

You can view items I used for my solar cell phone charger in this post. I am going to describe steps and  mistakes I did while making it.

1)  Soldered a diode to the positive terminal. Then soldered a wire to the diode. Mistake: I soldered the diode in a wrong direction. I discovered it only when the whole solar cell phone charger was made and it didn't charge the phone. The voltage on terminals under a lamp was 5 and more volts, but voltage in wires was 1.2 volts in every connection spots after terminals. Once the diode was soldered correctly, it started working. Here is an image of my initial soldering: 

How electricity works

The first step before making a charger is to learn how electricity works in general and how solar cell transforms solar energy into electricity. The first 5 minutes of the video below explain how electricity works:

Items necessary to make a solar cell phone charger

Today I made a video of items that I have to make the charger. Check it out: