DIY solar

Basically I get bored. And when I get bored, I HAVE to mess with things. It's a habbit. Recently i've been messing with solar panels, and made myself a charger for my ipod, as its a 4th gen and gettting on a bit so the battery doesnt last too good. So now that charges quite happily on the bus, even on artificial lighting.
Anyway, my brother gave me his old Samsung F700, on which the charging port was broken, so guess what, calls for a solar panel.
Oh, and in doing this i burnt my arm on a glue gun, my hand on a soldering iron, jabbed myself with a screwdriver and cut my finger on the glass solar panel. Be careful.

Step 1

Obviously, the phone needs dismantling, so i did that.

Step 2

Somewhere, we have to fit a blocking diode. This is a little black thing with a white stripe at one end. The stripe goes closest to the +ve of the battery. Oh and closest to the battery than the panel, otherwise the batery discharges.

Step 3

After managed to solder the dam thing to the back of the connectors, i had to try and get it up through the back of the case. A needle and a lighter should make a nice hole.

Step 4

Well we need a wire for the -ve side, so lets stick one of them in somewhere, and feed the dam wires up through some holes.

Step 5

Reassembly. Well i can only say, this was the mostf difficult part of the whole thing. Screwing the back on to then discover the phone isn't turning on, dismantling, painting bits with enamel paint, reassembling, testing, dismantling, sticking some bits of solder in places to try and improve battery connection.
Anyway, i got there in the end. Now, that dam solar panel

Step 6

Cut some hole in the back that the solar panel fits in, carry on trimming until the thing actually fits, assemble phone cover, THEN GLUE solar panel in. Othertwise the dam back will never fit.

Step 7

Solder some wires between the 2 pieces, +ve battery to +ve on solar panel and vice-versa.
BINGO!

Some pictures for interest, or that you may find helpful attemping something yourself.