home solar wireless network w/ spare parts

I've got two laptops that I want to use in a shed in the woods about a
hundred yards.down the hill in the woods away from the house. I have a
linksys wrt54g router in the house. I don't have a wireless connection
at the shed location.

I also have an old Parmak solar fence charger w/ a cracked panel and a
6-V gel battery. The Parmak is a decent one, DF-SP-SS, that powers more
than 10 miles of fence.

I have universal car DC outlet power thingie - plug the cigarette
lighter gizmo on one end of the wire into a car's power jack and then
plug an appliance into the regular 3-prong jack that's at the other end
of the wire.

I have a three-outlet power strip.

This is in central New England, w/ a shrouded view to the South.

Can I rig the Parmak charger to power the universal car adapter and get
enough power to run two laptops and some kind of (you say which)
wireless connection solution?

A new panel for the charger will run me about $100, and I want to get
this all done for <$150.

I know nothing about nothing, can just barely screw in a lightbulb by
myself. So please keep things simple.

"dw" <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:
> A new panel for the charger will run me about $100, and I want to get
> this all done for <$150.
>
> I know nothing about nothing, can just barely screw in a lightbulb by
> myself. So please keep things simple.

For $150 you can buy one hell of an extension cord. That is your
cheapest least rube-goldbergian solution.

If your electric fence charger puts out at least 6 watts at (12v at
500ma) you might be able to run a linksys wrt54g. Most solar cell
panel seem to be rated rather enthusiastically. I wouldn't expect to
see within a factor of 2 of the claimed numbers unless you measure
with absolutely no shadows falling on the panel, at noon, in Arizona,
during the summer.

-wolfgang
--
Wolfgang S. Rupprecht http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/

Wolfgang S. Rupprecht wrote:
> "dw" <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:
> > A new panel for the charger will run me about $100, and I want to get
> > this all done for <$150.
> >
> > I know nothing about nothing, can just barely screw in a lightbulb by
> > myself. So please keep things simple.
>
> For $150 you can buy one hell of an extension cord. That is your
> cheapest least rube-goldbergian solution.
>
> If your electric fence charger puts out at least 6 watts at (12v at
> 500ma) you might be able to run a linksys wrt54g. Most solar cell
> panel seem to be rated rather enthusiastically. I wouldn't expect to
> see within a factor of 2 of the claimed numbers unless you measure
> with absolutely no shadows falling on the panel, at noon, in Arizona,
> during the summer.
>
> -wolfgang
> --
> Wolfgang S. Rupprecht http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/

I'm not sure I'd want to run that long of an extension cord for safety
issues, assuming it would be legal. I don't know for sure, but I
believe 48V is the limit for not needing to be "to code". That is the
idea behind all this low voltage lighting. I was given a few TDK ERD
12-12-48 DC to DC converters. I guess these were designed for taking 4
12V batteries and bucking them down to 12V, but such a device could be
used to create a 12V supply in a distant location using direct burial
low voltage wire. The higher input voltage allows for more IR loss in
the wire. Notebook have some really high power demands, so you would
need something like the ERD 12-12-48, which can deliver 12A at 12v.

The other problem with running a notebook in an outdoor environment is
that notebooks are designed for human acceptable operating conditions.
That is, though the electronic components are probably commercial grade
temperature range, you often cheat if the assumption is the device is
designed to be used by a person. If you reached 50 deg C, most people
won't feel like computing!

dw wrote:
> I've got two laptops that I want to use in a shed in the woods about a
> hundred yards.down the hill in the woods away from the house. I have a
> linksys wrt54g router in the house. I don't have a wireless connection
> at the shed location.
>
> I also have an old Parmak solar fence charger w/ a cracked panel and a
> 6-V gel battery. The Parmak is a decent one, DF-SP-SS, that powers
> more than 10 miles of fence.
>
> I have universal car DC outlet power thingie - plug the cigarette
> lighter gizmo on one end of the wire into a car's power jack and then
> plug an appliance into the regular 3-prong jack that's at the other
> end of the wire.
>
> I have a three-outlet power strip.
>
> This is in central New England, w/ a shrouded view to the South.
>
> Can I rig the Parmak charger to power the universal car adapter and
> get enough power to run two laptops and some kind of (you say which)
> wireless connection solution?
>
> A new panel for the charger will run me about $100, and I want to get
> this all done for <$150.
>
> I know nothing about nothing, can just barely screw in a lightbulb by
> myself. So please keep things simple.

Sure.. Just pick up one of those cig lighter inverter things (hard to tell
from your description above, but you did use the buzzwords ciggarette
lighter gizmo and 3-prong jack, and may already have one).. Essentially
power wherever there is a cig lighter plug.. I use mine in the garage
(outbuilding, 300+ft from the house, in northern idaho), to run a wrt54g
wap/router, and use (not all at the same time, but alternately two laptop
chargers a cellphone charger ((and a pda charger, but thats another story)),
and sometimes when dark, even a desk lamp (40 watt bulb)...