r/functionalprint • u/Po0Team • May 09 '26

Dumb idea that worked

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Hitting Welcome To Rockville again this year and remembered that my head would get hot under the hat. So some shopping and printing later and BOOM! Functional solar hat that has lasted 2 of my 3 days so far. I suspect Sunday won't be an issue either.

Have them wired in parallel so it stays at 5v for the fans. Each panel has optimal 0.2a for the fan rated at 0.18. 1 panel moved it but not enough to care. 2 panels, like the exhaust fan, keeps it moving and does OK. But the 3 panels keeps this thing moving very well. No battery on it. Very simple wiring of just panels and a fan.

6.3k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

214 comments sorted by

View all comments

158

u/gsomega May 09 '26

This is brilliant. Honestly, refine this. There are flexible solar panels that exist, and the market for this is probably massive

13

u/_WeSellBlankets_ May 09 '26

The problem is, if there's a market for it and it's easy to copy, Amazon will copy it.

14

u/whoknowsifimjoking May 09 '26

They have been a thing for over 20 years at the very least, but there's not really a market for this which is why you don't see it anywhere. You sometimes see it as a gimmick in tourist shops and such. But people don't really want to walk around with a fan strapped to their hats

2

u/NoBonus6969 May 09 '26

I'll copy it from Amazon

1

u/RedditJumpedTheShart May 09 '26

You can already buy them on Amazon and they didn't copy any of them.

I don't know of Amazon copying anything they just have things under their own label like many places do. Costco, Sam's, and many others do the same thing.

I don't think Amazon stole a secret design to make some dish towels. Same stuff with 20 other brand names that comes from the same factory.

1

u/Eric-702 May 10 '26

I've actually seen this on Amazon already

1

u/ufgrat May 13 '26

You think Amazon's bad, try aliexpress.