If you look around there are panels with built in 12v and USB outlets using a tiny PCB to do the work.
Not sure how it looks in the USA with all your tariff madness but here in the UK it's under $US 100 for a 450W panel delivered and they are made in such volume at that size it's only really tiny ones that are cheaper, so it's actually often easier and cheaper to just grab one of them and a wide input buck converter or reasonable standard MPPT to cover the 30-50v range unless you need to be portable. Be careful of the cheap mostly Chinese crap solar controllers all over online sites. Aside from going up in clouds of smoke many of the dirt cheap Chinese ones will happily put 17v out of the 12v as they fail. Alan On Sun, 2 Nov 2025, 11:39 Scott McDonnell, <[email protected]> wrote: > I was inspired to pick up a 12V 5W solar panel to play around with this as > well. The voltage output of a raw solar panel is a bit unpredictable, so it > will need regulation. I was getting almost 9V just indoors (under no load, > of course). I chose the 12V to give me some overhead. > > Typically, a system would have batteries and a controller to smooth out > the solar output. I picked up some other components to experiment with for > that purpose. I was thinking that some supercapacitors might be good > enough. The trick will be to ensure whatever buck converter you use is > efficient enough to not rob the power output. > > I live in Florida, so my results will likely be a bit skewed. :) > > Scott > On 10/28/2025 4:08 PM, B9 wrote: > > I tried my 5W, 5V solar panel with a Tandy 200 and it didn't work. It > would show activity on the LCD but never made it to the menu before > freezing up. > > Could be because it was a cloudy day and through a glass window. Could be > because it doesn't output anywhere close to "5W". > > It's too bad, since the panel is only a little larger than the Tandy 200 > and could easily have been mounted on the lid. > > --b9 > > > On October 23, 2025 6:45:27 PM PDT, B9 <[email protected]> > <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Very cool! I remember hearing about that guy but didn't know he had a >> Model T. The article mentions he had "a 12V battery, and a five-watt solar >> panel." >> >> I'm presuming he used the solar panel to charge the battery and then used >> the battery to run the Model T. >> >> "Direct solar" as AbortRetryFail mentioned might be possible, but I'm not >> sure what the advantage of that would be. I think I've got a 5W panel, so >> maybe I'll give it a shot just to see. >> >> --B9 >> >> >> >> >> >> On October 23, 2025 3:48:40 PM PDT, Mike Stein <[email protected]> >> <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> A solar powered M100... >>> >>> https://bikepacking.com/plog/steve-roberts-computing-across-america/ >>> >>> On Wed, Oct 22, 2025 at 2:53 PM [email protected] < >>> [email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> What are the limits/parameters of the 100's power supply circuit >>>> anyway. Has anyone dug into it? >>>> >>>> Direct solar power for example would be cool, but I'd be reluctant to >>>> experiment on the 40 year old hardware... >>>> >>>> >>>> On October 21, 2025 4:20:27 PM EDT, Scott McDonnell < >>>> [email protected]> wrote: >>>> >>>>> This shouldn't be a problem. >>>>> On 10/21/2025 10:24 AM, VANDEN BOSSCHE JAN wrote: >>>>> >>>>> I found some stabilized power supplies, discarded but new. >>>>> >>>>> They are not compatible with the models T, but I suppose I can always >>>>> adapt the pin. I’ve done it with USB-cables too. >>>>> >>>>> But these are 7,5 V, 650 mA. Isn’t that too much ? AFAIK, a standard >>>>> Tandy wall-wart is 6V, but not stabilized. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> *Jan-80 @ work* >>>>> >>>>> Rejoignez-nous sur Facebook - Volg ons op Facebook >>>>> >>>>> -- Sent from /e/OS Mail. >>>> >>>
