Environment

The Forty2 portable solar power unit pins production hopes on crowd-funding

The Forty2 portable solar power unit pins production hopes on crowd-funding
South Dakota's Peppermint Energy has launched a Kickstarter funding campaign to help take its Forty2 personal, portable solar energy device from working prototype to its first limited production run and beyond
South Dakota's Peppermint Energy has launched a Kickstarter funding campaign to help take its Forty2 personal, portable solar energy device from working prototype to its first limited production run and beyond
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The Forty2 development team from Peppermint energy - Daren Davoux (left), Tom Brzica (center) and Brian Gramm (right)
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The Forty2 development team from Peppermint energy - Daren Davoux (left), Tom Brzica (center) and Brian Gramm (right)
The Forty2 has dimensions of about 2 x 3 ft when closed and weighs 25 pounds
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The Forty2 has dimensions of about 2 x 3 ft when closed and weighs 25 pounds
South Dakota's Peppermint Energy has launched a Kickstarter funding campaign to help take its Forty2 personal, portable solar energy device from working prototype to its first limited production run and beyond
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South Dakota's Peppermint Energy has launched a Kickstarter funding campaign to help take its Forty2 personal, portable solar energy device from working prototype to its first limited production run and beyond
The Forty2 makes enough power available to the unit's three built-in AC outlets to run a small fridge or a big screen TV, or simultaneously charge several mobile devices like smartphones and tablets
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The Forty2 makes enough power available to the unit's three built-in AC outlets to run a small fridge or a big screen TV, or simultaneously charge several mobile devices like smartphones and tablets
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It took Deep Thought (the supercomputer from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy) seven and a half million years to calculate that the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything was 42. South Dakota's Peppermint Energy is hoping that it won't take quite that long to bring its personal, portable solar energy device named The Forty2 into production. The company has turned to crowd-funding portal Kickstarter to help it take the all-in-one power unit from working prototype to its first limited production run and beyond.

The Forty2 features two banks of photovoltaic panels mounted on opposing faces of the clamshell unit that can reportedly supply 180-200 watts of continuous power and Li-ion battery packs rated at 350 watt-hours (although higher capacity options are planned for the future) hidden within its polypropylene housing. Onboard power inversion technology is claimed to make enough power available to the unit's three built-in AC outlets to run a small fridge or a big screen TV, or simultaneously charge several mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

"Most days, the solar power will flow directly to the electronics," CEO Brian Gramm told Gizmag. "Unlike most 'solar chargers' or 'solar batteries/kits', the solar power actually powers the electronics. The battery is kicked into service when the electrical load is greater than what the solar is providing at the moment. In that way the solar is the power generator, and the battery is the backup or extra kick. Obviously, when the sun isn't available, the battery is called on full-time."

The Forty2 makes enough power available to the unit's three built-in AC outlets to run a small fridge or a big screen TV, or simultaneously charge several mobile devices like smartphones and tablets
The Forty2 makes enough power available to the unit's three built-in AC outlets to run a small fridge or a big screen TV, or simultaneously charge several mobile devices like smartphones and tablets

The Forty2 has dimensions of about 2 x 3 ft (0.6 x 0.9 m) when closed and weighs 25 pounds (11.3 kg), and has been designed for ease of use. There are no buttons, dials or levers, users just need to open it up and plug in.

Kickstarter backers who stump up more than US$500 will be the first to get their hands on one of the first 250 units off the U.S. production line, but there are plenty of other incentives available for those who might not have such a huge wad of cash lying around. The team hopes to have the initial batch of Forty2 devices ready for December shipping.

Although very much a business concern, Peppermint Energy says that it intends to work with NGOs and charities to make the Forty2 available to the significant number of communities which don't have access to reliable power (or don't have power at all).

"Domestically, we will sell through our own website as well as through traditional retailers," said Gramm. "For developing countries, we will partner with (sell into and help raise specific funds for) NGOs whose mission the Forty2 can support. In that way the NGO becomes the distributor, and can then leverage their existing network to get the units in the hand of the end users. We are a business, but we will be working to give many of these units away while we are selling them."

Source: Peppermint Energy, Kickstarter

The aims of the project are outlined in the following Kickstarter campaign video:

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5 comments
5 comments
Kingsfield58
Do you know why 42 is the answer to everything? Because it's the sum of all numbers on a pair of dice. In other words, as in the game of Craps, everything depends on the roll of the dice. A very amusing thought (if it weren't so deeply depressing)...
yinfu99
I think this is a good idea. It allows portable power in a streamlined form. I think it should include the new tech of converting heat to power as well, since with solar, the two come hand in hand. That might also require less battery back up, or replace with capacitor storage.
Jody Price
OK now this is worthy of funding especially for use in the "developing world". If I weren't developing my own product right now I'd certainly join in on this.!!!
I suggest that you contact the other folks developing refrigeration for the "developing world". This fits in a backpack with enough power to run a coleman fridge.
Hope you have your IP protection in place as this is destined to be cloned if not.
Well done!!
Jon A.
This falls into the trap of being way too big to be portable, and nowhere near powerful enough to actually run a house off of. For instance, you could not run an electric pump worth talking about off of this, nor could you run a full-sized refrigerator. Two very mission-critical tasks for backup power. For $500, I could buy a liquid propane generator, which would also be fairly clean and produce about 20 times the power. I also question whether this thing can operate in the rain. If the outlets are on the side of it, the answer is no.
Robert Hirsch
how are people around the world ever going to afford this device. Nice for a gadget freak in the first world though.