# Lounge > Home and Garden >  Portable solar panels for charging

## sexualbanana

I live in a south-facing high-rise condo with 9.5-foot floor to ceiling windows. 13 of them to be exact. I got battery-powered automatic shades because a) they're fancy, and b) my view is great to go to sleep to but awful to wake up to (it gets very bright, very early). I was hesitant with the battery power because of the recharging factor but was also told that hardwiring their power into my condo was going to be cost prohibitive.

It occurred to me over the holidays that maybe I could get a small, portable solar panel that I could stick onto the window (like in the top corner) and run a usb power cord to each shade control unit. I can't imagine the solution would be that easy, so I wanted to check with people who know what they're talking about to see what I'm missing (like a trickle charger or a battery), or if you have any recommendations. Ideally, if one panel could charge multiple shades, that would be awesome.

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## pheoxs

Do you know what size battery they take / how often they need to be recharged. Really depends on how much power they take so typically can recharge them daily and still work if they got a few overcast / winter days.

In reality though unless you put a solar panel on each of the 14 windows, you’re going to be running a wire between them anyways. At that point I’d just hardwire them all. Hard to say without seeeing them but I’d just run a wire up to the ceiling then along the whole roof to hit all the windows. Then just put a piece of trim/moulding to cover it and blend it all in.

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## mr2mike

We need the electrical specs on each blind. Type of battery even?

Minimum, need a battery or a capacitor to hold the solar power till you need it.

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## ExtraSlow

If you need to run a wire to each motor, then why not just run that wire to a battery charger and not a huge ugly and expensive solar panel?

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## AndyL

Lets not forget that one part of the building code... <48v is not electricity. So putting in a wall-wart, and a bunch of doorbell wire in "snap in" style conduit - is homeowner do-able whereas running another breaker and multiple 110v feeds to blinds - is cost prohibitive. The wallwart scenario is way more likely to burn down the house - but it meets code and budget.

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## ExtraSlow

What is a wallwart?

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## arcticcat522

Something ugly on a wall... a wart on the wall

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## AndyL

> What is a wallwart?

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## ExtraSlow

That makes sense. Just hadn't heard that term.

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## jwslam

When I ordered from BlindDepot I paid extra for the solar on a single window...
https://www.blinddepot.ca/page-dopti...dproduit=16902

Looks like it's $70 for just that panel... times 13 windows would be... not worth?

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