UPDATED PRODUCT! Medium 6V 2W Solar panel 2.0 Watt. These panels come to us from Voltaic Systems, makers of fine solar-powered bags and packs. These are waterproof, scratch resistant, and UV resistant. They use a high efficiency monocrystalline cell. They output 6V at 330 mA via 3.5mm x 1.3mm DC jack connector. The substrate is an aluminum / plastic composite, specifically designed to be strong and lightweight. They can easily stand up to typical outdoor use including being dropped and leaned on. They’re very high quality and suggested for projects that will be exposed to the outdoors.
New! These now comes with 4 plastic mounting screws which makes it easy to attach the panel, even to fabric!
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Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
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I didn’t have the IR Solar Cell kit as pictured, but I did have the same exact little solar-cell shown in the lower-right corner.
My childhood coincided with the most exciting days of the American space program. Dad worked at Grumman (designer and builder of the Lunar Excursion Module- which I actually got to see under construction in an enormous clean room at the main plant in Bethpage, NY).
These were the years of the Kennedy Challenge, and believe it or not, science, technology and educational excellence were very much in fashion in those days. (funny how that went down the tubes once the cold-war was over, and we no longer had anything to prove to the "Russkies," but that is another topic for another time.)
Absolutely everything in those days had a "space" theme- the drawing in the advert was very typical (funny- I never remember seeing any <i>girls</i> in those ads!).
But anyway- the IR solar cell… I remember it well- The case was a little larger than 1 inch square, made of orange plastic, with a fly-eye clear plastic compound lens. I mail-ordered it from Edmund Scientific in 1971 (before they became Edmund Optics) and how I was totally on pins and needles waiting for the package to arrive! (I <i>was</i> 10 after all).
It was an important component in several experiments/projects, almost always used as a sensor. For several months, it was hanging in a south-facing bedroom window, and a small transistor circuit I designed would switch on a small transistor radio and wake me up at first-light.
My favorite project, however, was a photophone I designed and built for my 6th grade science fair. I built a little class-A transistor amplifier that modulated a little #49 pilot lamp bulb (The S-2 filament design had a faster response than the coiled types). It used a carbon button microphone salvaged from an old telephone.
The detector, of course, was the famous IR photocell, wired directly to the volume control wiper of my transistor radio, so that it could be used as an audio amplifier. I would also use this to "listen" to fluorescent lamps as they started- made a very cool sound.
Oh wow-What memories!
I didn’t have the IR Solar Cell kit as pictured, but I did have the same exact little solar-cell shown in the lower-right corner.
My childhood coincided with the most exciting days of the American space program. Dad worked at Grumman (designer and builder of the Lunar Excursion Module- which I actually got to see under construction in an enormous clean room at the main plant in Bethpage, NY).
These were the years of the Kennedy Challenge, and believe it or not, science, technology and educational excellence were very much in fashion in those days. (funny how that went down the tubes once the cold-war was over, and we no longer had anything to prove to the "Russkies," but that is another topic for another time.)
Absolutely everything in those days had a "space" theme- the drawing in the advert was very typical (funny- I never remember seeing any <i>girls</i> in those ads!).
But anyway- the IR solar cell… I remember it well- The case was a little larger than 1 inch square, made of orange plastic, with a fly-eye clear plastic compound lens. I mail-ordered it from Edmund Scientific in 1971 (before they became Edmund Optics) and how I was totally on pins and needles waiting for the package to arrive! (I <i>was</i> 10 after all).
It was an important component in several experiments/projects, almost always used as a sensor. For several months, it was hanging in a south-facing bedroom window, and a small transistor circuit I designed would switch on a small transistor radio and wake me up at first-light.
My favorite project, however, was a photophone I designed and built for my 6th grade science fair. I built a little class-A transistor amplifier that modulated a little #49 pilot lamp bulb (The S-2 filament design had a faster response than the coiled types). It used a carbon button microphone salvaged from an old telephone.
The detector, of course, was the famous IR photocell, wired directly to the volume control wiper of my transistor radio, so that it could be used as an audio amplifier. I would also use this to "listen" to fluorescent lamps as they started- made a very cool sound.
Thanks for the great memories!