Pocket Solar Factory

Pocket Solar Factory We're working to put solar energy everywhere, for everyone Picosolar is the smallest, cheapest type of solar panels--everything less than 25W.

Pocket Solar Factory is a project by Alex Hornstein and Shawn Frayne to revolutionize the way small-scale 'picosolar' panels are made. These are the panels used in mobile solar charging--solar backpacks, purses, and phone chargers, these are the panels used in just about every developing world solar product, and these are the panels used in solar streetlamps, solar garden lights, solar highway ref

lectors, and every other application that needs a small amount of electricity. Picosolar panels are currently made, entirely by hand, in thousands of factories around China. The greatest cost in making the solar panels is labor, and the imprecise manual processes mean that about 15% of the panels coming off the line don't work properly, and get trashed. We're making a low-cost, fully automated, tabletop factory that can produce picosolar cells, anywhere in the world. By automating the process, we can significantly lower the cost of these remarkable panels, making them accessible to more people around the world, we can produce our panels ethically, and by making our machine small and cheap, we can produce solar panels locally, anywhere in the world. We want to revolutionize the picosolar industry, and we want to do it right.

Eilrem working on the latest pocket factory, integrating a quartz heater to reflow the solar panels
05/08/2012

Eilrem working on the latest pocket factory, integrating a quartz heater to reflow the solar panels

aaand the new sundot is done! Finished it at 7 this morning, and three hours later it was on a plane to NYC
04/05/2012

aaand the new sundot is done! Finished it at 7 this morning, and three hours later it was on a plane to NYC

30/04/2012

spinning up the next rev of the sundot. Sketch to prototype in four days. Man, I love Hong Kong

30/04/2012
19/04/2012

well, back from a day in Zhuhai and Shenzhen visiting panel suppliers and makers of laser scribers. The more I learn about the picosolar industry the more interested I get. It's a billion-dollar business that flies totally under the radar, takes place in backwater places all over the world, has no central co-ordination, and yet somehow, everyone runs the exact same process, more or less, and makes the exact same product. Neato!

I like documenting how logos progress. For the record, here's our first logo
18/04/2012

I like documenting how logos progress. For the record, here's our first logo

18/04/2012

Catching the ferry to Zhuhai tomorrow to meet with silicon suppliers, then off to Shenzhen to check out another picosolar factory

18/04/2012

Doing the motion control electronics for the factory today. Arduino inside, of course. Helllooooo, chinese bipolar drivers

Seconds after we finished putting the Sundot up, people flocked around us, charging their phones and asking to buy one. ...
17/04/2012

Seconds after we finished putting the Sundot up, people flocked around us, charging their phones and asking to buy one. Best launch ever!

11/04/2012

We're working on an idea to bring cheap, clean energy to everyone. Please take a minute to answer four questions and help us make a great product with pocket factory solar. Thanks!

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Mong Kok

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