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Portable solar thread

Anonymous Wed 20 Jul 2016 00:01:46 No.818408 View View Reply Original Report

Quoted By: >>818413 >>818588 >>819006 >>820994

Do any of you use a portable solar cell for your energy needs while out for a longer time?

>What do you use?
>What do you power with it?
>How well does it work?
>Where can you get the best/ most affordable tech?
>Is it worth the extra space and weight for you?

>also thread for everything offgrid tech related

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 20 Jul 2016 00:10:15 No.818413 Report

Quoted By: >>818433

>>818408
Yes, a 20 and 30 watt pair of folding 3 panel arrays. The thing in your pic is a joke and a novelty. To even charge a smartphone reliably under average conditions you will need 5 watts of pv, minimum. Solar works like a dream but only if you have many times more wattage than it seems like you need on paper.

Anonymous

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO tactical_solar_panel.jpg, 199KiB, 800x800

Anonymous Wed 20 Jul 2016 00:25:38 No.818433 Report

Quoted By:

>>818413
the bigger the better?

What things do you keep charged with your 50W?

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 20 Jul 2016 00:51:11 No.818452 Report

Quoted By:

> ordered on Amazon today

Give me a couple days for shipping and I'll post pics.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 20 Jul 2016 01:01:46 No.818459 Report

Quoted By:

A girl I fished with for a week had one exactly like the one you have in pic related. We only used our phones for pictures so obviously we didn't use our phones much since we didn't have service but it charged 3 phones throughout the trip so I guess it worked fine. Only thing I worry about with them is the longevity of it. I feel like after a few months of regular usage the battery will loose its ability to hold a full charge like it could if it was new.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 20 Jul 2016 01:29:41 No.818473 Report

Quoted By:

I have a little GoalZero 2-cell solar charger.
I should just take it out of my truck. It's been in there for well over a year, I never use it.

Now I just spin up a generator for an hour or two and charge everything with power to spare.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 20 Jul 2016 04:06:45 No.818588 Report

Quoted By: >>820041

>>818408
I have this.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 20 Jul 2016 21:13:52 No.819006 Report

Quoted By: >>819721

>>818408
i have that exact solar cell
holds a lot of power, and the little LED light is handy to have on it.
takes forever to charge off solar but better than nothing for extended /out/ings
don't pay more than 15 burgers

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 21 Jul 2016 21:27:21 No.819721 Report

Quoted By:

>>819006
Is it good enough to keep a headlamp and a phone charged?

Also:
How much W would I need to charge a laptop?

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 22 Jul 2016 10:15:12 No.820038 Report

Quoted By: >>820956

They are a waste of money. The solar panels are way too small to be useful and if only a single cell dies you may as well throw it away because it's unsalvageable. That's why they don't last long. They also tend to have very poor energy transfer efficiency, I've seen some that lose up to 50% of its power.

What you should be doing is building your own power bank. By a case and get some batteries that will cover your needs and slap that shit together. It's very easy and there's plenty of Youtube videos to show you how it's done. You'll be saving a lot of money and you can actually replace the cells when they eventually go bad. If you've got money to spend you can even get a solar panel that's actually worth a shit.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 22 Jul 2016 10:48:21 No.820041 Report

Quoted By: >>820115

>>818588
Review?

Anonymous

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO pasted image 0.png, 2MiB, 1000x1000

Anonymous Fri 22 Jul 2016 13:03:36 No.820067 Report

Quoted By:

I do also think these are too small to solar-charge themselves
you'll need something bigger

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 22 Jul 2016 14:08:05 No.820090 Report

Quoted By: >>820111 >>821072

Related: what's the best, gimmick-free, rugged line of phone cases?

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 22 Jul 2016 15:12:08 No.820111 Report

Quoted By:

>>820090
Otterbox Armor was the best but they aren't made anymore.

Anonymous

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO 1469031995256.gif, 967KiB, 238x314

Anonymous Fri 22 Jul 2016 15:19:23 No.820115 Report

Quoted By:

>>820041
The reviews on Amazon are mixed/shit. I was looking into this exact one but I am skeptical.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 23 Jul 2016 20:34:56 No.820956 Report

Quoted By: >>821066

>>820038
>By a case and get some batteries that will cover your needs and slap that shit together.

So I buy a bunch of AA rechargeable batteries, connect them and put them in a case...
How do I connect this to the solar panel?

Anonymous

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO IMG_20160601_080209441_HDR.jpg, 4MiB, 4160x3120

Anonymous Sat 23 Jul 2016 21:42:59 No.820994 Report

Quoted By: >>820995 >>821204

>>818408
I made my own solar collector for about 3$ from parts on ebay. The battery container was $1.50 and I have salvaged laptop batteries in it.

I used a multimeter to test how fast it charges, it does about 5% an hour which is about 10% an hour for a standard phone battery.

I only have 2 panels but you could easily add more to get the phone to charge quicker. I wouldn't go above 50% charge per hour.

Anonymous

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO IMG_20160601_075749345.jpg, 4MiB, 4160x3120

Anonymous Sat 23 Jul 2016 21:44:18 No.820995 Report

Quoted By: >>821069 >>821204

>>820994
all the parts pack into the yogurt container, and setting it up like this makes it waterproof.

Anonymous

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO Guide10Plusl.jpg, 81KiB, 462x494

Anonymous Sat 23 Jul 2016 22:00:18 No.821002 Report

Quoted By: >>821008

I got Nomad 7 + Guide 10 Plus by GoalZero.
There are better ones for cheaper but the GZ are built pretty rugged and they work.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 23 Jul 2016 22:10:27 No.821008 Report

Quoted By:

>>821002
That charger is awesome. Use it all the damn time.... on USB.

The solar panel is junk IMO.

Anonymous

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO batteryfordays.jpg, 32KiB, 556x417

Anonymous Sat 23 Jul 2016 23:41:31 No.821066 Report

Quoted By:

>>820956

Rechargeable AAs are NIMH. You can do way better. See that thing in the pic?

It's a power bank that lets you buy and put in your own 18650 lithium cells. They are WAY more energy dense than AAs and you can buy a case that fits anywhere from 1 to 6. There are USB ports on the top for charging stuff from. There's also a microusb port for charging the cells from a solar panel or wall adapter.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 23 Jul 2016 23:44:33 No.821069 Report

Quoted By:

>>820995

Very clever. I did something like that but with a huge tupperware storage container, a 200 watt rooftop style panel and a golf cart battery. It was for field research. We'd all just stick our laptops inside the tub itself plugged into the inverter, go out all day, come back and they would be charged. So would the battery. It was basically free power except lead acid batteries wear out so fast.

You can have a great time with solar as long as you have overkill wattage panels for the application, because there's factors you cannot control affecting the quality of sunlight

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 23 Jul 2016 23:48:05 No.821072 Report

Quoted By:

>>820090
pretty happy with my lifeproof
lost it's waterproofing at about 1.5 years but my GS5 is water resistant down to 2m IIRC
otterboxes are great for shock/drop protection and minor splash guarding depending on phone

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 24 Jul 2016 03:13:00 No.821204 Report

Quoted By:

>>820994
>>820995
I used PVs from those solar yard lights to make something to charge my netbook. It worked, but someone broke it and soldering something on those types of PVs was horrific for some reason.

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