Solar Charger Bank

[milouder]

Hi Folks,

I noticed there were multiple previous post on solar chargers however I am hoping someone could give me the perfect answer
I am now searching for weeks for the perfect Solar Charger that will actually charge on solar, not one that should really be charger via normal power at home.
It would be preferably that it has a light too, but can let that one go if one without one is better.

I will be using it for hiking but also for cycle trips.

Your help is much appreciated.

Many Thanks!

[Mark F]

Try reading http://bushwalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=24317

I am very happy with the Anker solar panel, just add the battery configuration you want. My setup is to charge the device - phone, headlight, Steripen - and also have a small amount of battery backup to cover wet/overcast periods. Will add a photo this evening.

[Mark F]

The Anker panel weighs about 250g after removing the heavy fabric and replacing it with cuben. I directly charge my phone (Samsung Galaxy 4), headlamp and Steripen.

If I run into a period of bad weather I have some backup, both in the charge already in the devices (they will run 3+ days without recharging) and a small battery pack. You can use any usb battery pack but I prefer the flexibility and lightness the cut down Miller 102 charger (16 grams) and the requisit number of Panasonic 18650 batteries (3400mA) at 46 grams each (wrongly labelled in the photo). Most times I only take one battery which lives in the charger rather than 2 as shown.

Solar setup

If you need to charge AA/AAA batteries the cheap Ikea charger pictured is only 39 grams. Not the best but very cheap and light. I also have a little usb charger for 3.6/3.8 v camera batteries which weighs 11 grams.

I have about 20 days use on the setup so far. I don't try to charge things while walking. I found that a sunny half hour or soo while packing up in the mornings was sufficient to keep everything topped up. After a couple of no charge days it also get deployed at lunchtime. The folded panel slides into the rear mesh pocket on my pack and has not sustained any damage even after a couple of slips/falls.

[keithy]

What Mark has suggested is the best option. I would also recommend getting a separate solar panel and a USB battery bank.

I would steer clear of the "all in one" solar panel and battery banks that you can find out there, including ones with a built in LED torch. I've posted this before, but in Australian conditions, these don't work well mainly for these reasons:

• their small solar panels provide too low a current to charge the attached battery bank fully (usually at a rate that it would take a number of days of sunshine to fully charge). If you need to use the battery bank daily this will become an issue that you will use up the battery faster than you can recharge it with the small attached solar panel.
• lithium batteries usually shut down charging via the charging controller (for safety) once the temperature gets over around 40 degrees, which is easy to do with the battery pack being attached directly to the solar panel.

Mark - the Ikea Vinninge charger is a nice looking charger, but it is quite the slow charger. Only outputting about 220mA charge current, it takes around 10-12 hours to fill up an Eneloop AA. For a better AA charger I take my Xiaomi Zi5 4 slot USB charger (which weighs around 51g without the plastic cover). You might not need the 4 slots, so consider also a Liitokala Lii100 single slot multi chemistry NiMH/Li-ion charger which comes in about 44g. The Liitokala I mentioned in another thread viewtopic.php?f=21&t=22730&p=305448#p297189 can also act as a USB powerbank.

Also you might be interested - I have just ordered a nifty super compact NiMH/Li-ion charger which I hope to use as a backup charger and with my solar panels. It is the Olight universal magnetic charger https://olightworld.com/store/flashligh ... harger.htm It comes in at about 22g, so is a bit heavier than your stripped down Miller charger, but it is able to charge both NiMH and Lithium batteries. It uses magnetic connectors and can be attached at either battery terminal as it will determine the correct polarity. I will post a review on how well it works with my solar panels once I get a chance.

This is what it looks like:

Olight UC Charger.jpg (52.69 KiB) Viewed 11821 times

[highercountry]

I will be using it for hiking but also for cycle trips.

For bike touring a built-in hub dynamo is a better option.
Very little peddling resistance, they are brilliant.
I can keep a phone, light and GPS charged indefinitely with around 5 hours cycling a day.
Combined with a panel you'd have energy to burn.

[Mark F]

Keithy - The Ikea charger is underpowered but was immediately available. I have just ordered a Liitokala 100 charger - they don't appear on the Liitokala web site! What I really want to find is a buck booster in a dummy AA case that will regulate a single li 14500 battery to mimic a Nimh AA.

Highercountry - For bike touring I agree that a built in hub dynamo is the best but not quite so useful if walking. Also the solar setup (panel, charger, batteries) is under AU$100, a hub dynamo setup is at least 2 or 3 times this.

[keithy]

Keithy - The Ikea charger is underpowered but was immediately available. I have just ordered a Liitokala 100 charger - they don't appear on the Liitokala web site! What I really want to find is a buck booster in a dummy AA case that will regulate a single li 14500 battery to mimic a Nimh AA.

That is true for the Ikea charger. At $4, I gave it a shot as well - it is an ok smart USB charger, but just let down by the low charge rate. It says it has -dv termination, but at that low current, some NiMHs might miss termination as the -dv is not detected, so I think it relies on the timer to terminate charge.

For the Liitokala, I forgot to mention that Gearbest sent me an email with it being discounted to USD$3.96, so brings it to under AUD$5.50, cheaper than the Miller charger at the moment. I should mention that the USB output I've gotten around 1.2A at 5V as well using an 18650.

I've have been quite impressed with the Liitokala build quality, and also picked up the 2 slot Lii200 (about 76g) and the larger charger analyser Lii 500 for home use on my 18650s.