Whats brewing at the Labs?

Last week, chanced up on a new toy at Tumkur, BSNL Customer Care Centre. It was a Solar PV panel along with a Charge Controller Unit capable of charging up to 12 volts DC. Officially it has been manufactured by the Indian Telephone Industries (ITI) Limited way back in January 2002. It is marketed as "Solar Photovoltaic Power Supply for Fixed Wireless Terminals". Guess the cost? Its available for Rs. 3500 only! Yes, its a steal considering that it can be used for charging up to 12 volts that comes along with panel, charge controller unit and a battery. There are a host of devices around that can benefit: the broadband router, 1 TB external hard disk, to name a few.

The only catch is that there is no guarantee for the battery that comes along with this unit. Its a 12 V, 12 Ah dry battery. Considering the time since it is manufactured one cannot be sure of it. However, have been lucky enough. For almost 3 days this was initially charged by the in-built float charger (supplying an input of 220 V by the AC mains). And since the last few days, the battery is being charged by the SPV module. This has been tested to run the router and 1 TB external hard disk. However, there hasn't been further performance tests on this yet.



If you are lucky you should be able to grab one at a Customer Care Centre of BSNL.