After looking for more items around the house which could be charged from the new solar system, we decided to try converting the Logitech Harmony 885 remote control chargers to run from 12 volts.

The Logitech charger runs at 8 volts and uses around 0.4 amps when charging the remote controls.

Using a LM2825N-ADJ Integrated Power Supply 1A DC-DC Converter from National Semiconductor, 2 surface mount resistors and 1 surface mount capacitor we made a small pcb to fit inside the base of the charger which would accept an input voltage from 9V to 40V.

The remote was modified with the addition of a small magnet in the base and in the charger a reed switch was added to allow the remote to automatically turn on the charger when it was placed in the charging cradle. This greatly reduces the energy these chargers normally use as they are designed to run from a plug in mains adaptor which is normally left connected 24/7.

The circuit diagram and pcb design came from the National Semiconductor datasheet on their website (PDF format).More...