Solar powered phone charger

Tusher

Does anyone have any advice on using a solar powered phone/i-pod/kindle charger whilst touring?
I do have a small one, but it's a couple of years old and doesn't produce enough power to charge a phone daily.

Or is technology moving so fast that if I wait a year there may be something better on the market?

Thanks

andrew_s

Solar power technology hasn't moved particularly fast.
You need a reasonably large area of solar cell (A4 or bigger) to be useful by the time you've allowed for cloudy days, being in the UK rather than on the equator, that charging whilst riding will leave the panel pointing not at the sun most of the time, and the sun being weak after you've stopped riding for the day.

I'd recommend charging off a hub dynamo & USB-werk

Tusher

Thanks Andrew- I suspect that it's one of these things that will see a huge technology leap shortly.

Since the opening post however, a kind relative has apparently bought one for me. I don't know what kind, but I'll let you know how I get on with it.

dilemna

Power Monkey Gorilla which will run a lap top if you so wish.

Tusher

Thanks Dilemna- Power Monkey is ringing a bell with me- I think that's what's been ordered.

team47b

I use a power monkey to charge the phone when touring (The gorilla is the big one for the laptop)

The monkey holds about 3 phone battery charges.

The solar panel takes about 15 hours of daylight to charge up the monkey, so I guess that's about 3 days to solar charge the battery but that gives you more than 3 days of phone use.

If you can use the mains occasionally to charge up the monkey it's fine.

Usb connection on a dynamo makes most sense.

Tusher

Well, the solar power monkey thing has been happily soaking up the sun on a south facing window sill and............it's fabulous. I love it.

So far, it's able to charge my phone, i-pad, kindle and Garmin with loads more left over in the battery. (I don't use the -pad that often though.)

The only problem is how it would cope with two people's gadgets whilst touring, and cloudy weather would, of course, be a huge problem.

Although I suspect that if you were frugal with the phone (ie, not using it for maps/music) then it would be fine for touring. And for a long tour, then the USB dynamo would be best.

andymiller

That's a huge amount of power. Which one do you have?

TomBruce

I had one on my round the world tour a couple of years ago and it was pretty useless in Europe. Was OK when I got to Asia and had quite a lot more sun! Really though, it's not something that's going to be able to keep your phone charged if you want to use the phone a lot as a music player/camera whatever. Better to buy a load of spare batteries (unless you have an iphone) which are pretty cheap on ebay. Solar charger is a good thing for emergencies though as it will provide enough juice to make a quick call/send a text.

more on my trip at http://www.tombrucecycling.com if you're interested.

Paul-Posh

I've just been lent a Solio Bolt solar charger to test out with my Mio GPS. The box suggests that it'll give most smartphones 2 charges. I'll give it a go tomorrow and let you know how I get on.
The blurb suggests it'll charge a phone to full in about 2 hours. The device itself takes 4.5 hours to charge from USB or 8-10 hours to charge from the sun

Tusher

andymiller wrote:

That's a huge amount of power. Which one do you have?

It's the power monkey explorer Andy.

Although there's hardly been any sun today, so no charge, and I'm not expecting too much over winter.

But I adore the idea.

andymiller

Tusher wrote:

andymiller wrote:

That's a huge amount of power. Which one do you have?

It's the power monkey explorer Andy.

Although there's hardly been any sun today, so no charge, and I'm not expecting too much over winter.

But I adore the idea.

The powermonkey explorer has a battery capacity of 2200 mAh while the iPad alone has a capacity of 11500 mAh (ie five times the capacity of the powermonkey). the powermonkey's maximum power output is 200mA which means that working at full pelt it would require nearly 58 hours to recharge the iPod (that's about a week assuming 8 hours of sunshine every day). (Someone please correct me if these calculations are wrong).

So I'm a bit puzzled when you say you've managed to charge that list of devices and still have power left in the battery.

I don't want to sound nitpicking, and I must be misinterpreting what you've said, but someone could go out an spend money on the basis of what you've said and find that the charger doesn't do what they thought it would do.

drewk1

I use one of these:

http://www.portablepowersupplies.co.uk/7w-solar-usb-charger/

Charges my iPhone 4s, Garmin Edge 800 and a usb power bank thing fine.

Works same speed as a manin iPhone charger in bright sunlight.

It also folds down to a handy size.

Tusher

andymiller wrote:

Tusher wrote:

andymiller wrote:

That's a huge amount of power. Which one do you have?

It's the power monkey explorer Andy.

Although there's hardly been any sun today, so no charge, and I'm not expecting too much over winter.

But I adore the idea.

The powermonkey explorer has a battery capacity of 2200 mAh while the iPad alone has a capacity of 11500 mAh (ie five times the capacity of the powermonkey). the powermonkey's maximum power output is 200mA which means that working at full pelt it would require nearly 58 hours to recharge the iPod (that's about a week assuming 8 hours of sunshine every day). (Someone please correct me if these calculations are wrong).

So I'm a bit puzzled when you say you've managed to charge that list of devices and still have power left in the battery.

I don't want to sound nitpicking, and I must be misinterpreting what you've said, but someone could go out an spend money on the basis of what you've said and find that the charger doesn't do what they thought it would do.

Not at all Andy! You're not nit-picking- I wouldn't want to lead anyone astray.

(Obviously) I'm not a heavy user of the i-pad, but my phone is on all the times, although I'm not using it for games and access the internet via it rarely, so yes, I'm probably not a typical user. Garmin is used daily, for 60-70 mins, and the Kindle is used 20-30 mins daily.

Having said that, we've not seen much sun since I posted, but it's still picking up some charge on the window sill. Although November-March, I wouldn't expect much from it at all.

I do have a smaller solar thingy, a PowerBee, which is half the size of the power monkey. I've used it for well over a year, and it was the only charger for my old phone apart from December and January when I had to search for the plug in charger. But it doesn't have the adaptor for apples, which was one of the reasons I was looking for a new solar charger. When touring, it sits on my handbag bag. I may put the power monkey on the rack bag though.

I think I possibly save 75p in electricity a year.

Paul-Posh

Tried out the Solio Bolt over the weekend. It did a good job on my GPS worked as I would expect it to do.

It is also Apple friendly so it wouldn't have any connection issues with iPads/phones.

Adapter wise you just plug in your usual USB charger into it. The only adapter it comes with is the one required to charge it up.

promethium

smaller, lighter new charger called Solarwrap out recently in the USA from Bushnell - only on ebay here so far:

http://biketouringnews.com/bike-touring ... ike-tours/
http://www.roadbikerider.com/top

http://www.bushnell.com/hunting/outdoor ... rwrap-mini Their site has some videos on this and their range roll-up chargers.

Seems to have good review here:
http://www.outdoorgearlab.com/Solar-Cha ... rWrap-Mini

I like that its small and light. Have ordered one but not arrived yet..

earth

Has anyone tried mounting a solar panel on the upright part of a rack and charging a battery from that?