Firefly Rural Electrification System

Votes: 13
Views: 5592

Firefly is the world’s most advanced solar powered device for light and mobile charging where there is no power. Thus, Firefly is a better and safer life for rural dwellers.

Firefly has three different parts to provide the basic necessities. The central “brains” of the system is the main Firefly box. From a specially designed battery to carefully selected materials, everything about the Firefly screams “engineering”.

Firefly’s specially designed integral Lithium-ion battery coupled with a “smart board” protection board creates the most highly engineered, reliable and robust power storage solution available. The Lithium-ion cells, nine cells in all, are of the highest quality providing for the longest life available. Rated at 1,800 charge-discharge cycles, the battery will last over five years! And, with the “smart” protection board preventing any type of ill event, the battery is well protected from abuse.

Combine this battery with our integral proprietary solar charge controller PCB and you have a robust long lasting power source. With proprietary Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) and a customized Lithium-ion charge profile algorithm running on an advanced microprocessor, our proprietary Li-ion charge controller maximizes the available solar harvest while charging the specialized battery for maximum performance and life.

Lithium-ion batteries can get hot…real hot. So, just in case of fire, the enclosure of Firefly is made of a flame retardant material that will encapsulate the battery and extinguish any flame, making Firefly one of the safest battery operated device available. There is a built-in shelf to hold your mobile while it charges keeping it safe. And, the there is an indicator lights for solar input and battery status making Firefly easy to use.

Then we have the Firefly LED lights. There are five of the most engineered LED lights available. Regardless of battery charge, the Firefly LED lights draw a constant 1.2 watts of power with a constant brightness of 120 lumens. Firefly LED lights are manufactured with LEDs capable of delivering light for 10 years! Adding to the robustness, the LED assembly and driver board are sealed, so the lights are submersible. And with 5 meters of cord and a separate switch for each Firefly LED light, there can be light in each room of a rural dwelling.

Finally, the source of the power for Firefly is the sun. To capture this energy, Firefly uses a 20 watt solar panel. Again, only the best and highest quality is used. Thus, Firefly incorporates German solar cells into a highly reliable and robust solar panel designed to harvest energy from the sun for 25 years! And, with 20 watts of power being produced in bright sun, Firefly will fully charge in under 6 hours!

There you have it! Advanced battery technology combined with microprocessor control, world-class engineering and material science with leading edge LED design all powered by the sun…This is Firefly!

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  • ABOUT THE ENTRANT

  • Name:
    Mel Radford
  • Type of entry:
    team
    Team members:
    Scott Draffin, Engineering Manager
    Will Wood, Engineer
    Paresh Vasa, Engineer
  • Profession:
    Engineer/Designer
  • Mel is inspired by:
    Trying to increase the quality of life and education for all those around the world!
  • Software used for this entry:
    ACAD Inventor
  • Patent status:
    pending