Understanding USB and Solar chargers

The following projects provide lots of information on portable battery chargers for USB, solar panels, and measuring the results of circuits to process raw power from the solar panel.

http://learn.adafruit.com/minty-boost/process

http://learn.adafruit.com/solar-charging-handbag

http://learn.adafruit.com/portable-solar-charging-tracker

And this wikipedia article explains the concept of boost convertors that generate a higher output voltage than the input.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boost_converter

I’ve not yet had a go at creating any of these devices yet, at the moment it’s food-for-thought 🙂