Adafruit now carries Solar Badges! It’s like free outdoor 5V batteries forever! I picked up a few of these and have been toying around what I’m going to do with them. They pump out 5V at 40mA for all of your portable power needs. The other huge plus about these is that the cell is a 2″ round badge that comes with a pin. This makes your power supply wearable to show the world your project!  As described in the video above, this badge measures temperature, displays a color scale from red to blue, and flashes digits, displayed as numbered pulses for the temperature. It also has a RGB ‘rainbow’ mode for bling as well as constant color changing temperature display. It was a fun little project and you can pick up the Solar Badge, Perma-Proto Boards, TMP36 Temp Sensor, Tilt Switch, Push Button, RGB LED, and even the ATmega328 at Adafruit.

You will notice in the pictures below that I had to modify the Perma-Proto Board a little. I was able to not use any wires because of the design of the board. These boards are really good quality, as in super strong because of thru hole plating (really strong – tried to peel a trace off with a screwdriver and could not, had to use a Dremel), gold plated (not copper – better connection and won’t oxidize!), and just plain look good. What great boards to work with!

Arduino sketch

Eagle Schematic

Schematic PDF