Adventure Cycling Association Forum
Bicycle Travel => Gear Talk => Topic started by: avman1023 on May 07, 2021, 03:00:32 pm
-
Can anyone recommend a solar charger/battery combo? Something that's about the size of a phone, but with solar cells on the top. Expose the solar cells to sunlight and it charges the internal battery, from which you can plug in your own devices for later charging. Doesn't need to be huge, it should have enough storage to charge a standard phone once or twice. A year ago I tried to buy such a thing from LitSolar, but turns out it was a scam with the product never arriving. (Got the charge reversed from my credit card, but it was a hassle and I really wanted the product!) So now I'm wary of the reliability of online searches for tech like this, and would rather get an endorsement from an actual person. Thanks!
-
You can check out the new offerings from Anker on their website, but laws of physics do not (yet) accommodate the small, high efficiency energy conversion you describe. For the weight, most folks ride with a spare battery sometimes hooked up to a dyno hub.
With phone battery capacity doubling over the last few y to >3000 mA-h, available panels can't reliably convert enough energy - especially if one throws in GPS, lights, trackers, tablets, etc....
That said, if you enjoy technology, keep reading; there's something new every day - perhaps one reason I didn't include a link to past threads on this topic.
-
I bought and have used in a limited fashion the Bear Grylls minis solar charger. It appears to work well and the reviews are good, but I cannot endorse based on personal experience, since I have not used it enough. We do a lot of trail and gravel riding and my phone stays off since we usually have poor reception. We hit a B&B or hotel every day or two can can charge what we need then.
We have a TransAm planned for next spring now so I guess I should test this better. https://www.amazon.com/Bushnell-Bear-Grylls-SolarWrap-Charger/dp/B00AMPJNT2 (https://www.amazon.com/Bushnell-Bear-Grylls-SolarWrap-Charger/dp/B00AMPJNT2) It appears this has been discontinued as I research. My next go to would probably be https://www.cabelas.com/shop/en/toughtested-roc-waterproof-10000mah-solar-wireless-charger (https://www.cabelas.com/shop/en/toughtested-roc-waterproof-10000mah-solar-wireless-charger)
-
You will probably be disappointed with any panel that small if you expect it to provide much charging capacity.
-
Thanks for the advice! This was the kind of real-world input I needed. It looks like solar panel technology isn't where I want it to be quite yet. I'll keep hoping.
I've done cross-country cycling trips with the power banks I currently have, but am going on a week-long whitewater rafting trip where there won't be any opportunities to recharge batteries. I only need power for a camera and flashlight, hopefully with that low power need I can get buy with charged power banks.
-
This one may have some potential if 21.5 oz is not too much weight
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0882JLJC6/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_1?smid=A3587HXKN8D5H0&psc=1 (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0882JLJC6/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_1?smid=A3587HXKN8D5H0&psc=1)
-
This one may have some potential if 21.5 oz is not too much weight
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0882JLJC6/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_1?smid=A3587HXKN8D5H0&psc=1 (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0882JLJC6/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_1?smid=A3587HXKN8D5H0&psc=1)
That looks promising! More solar panels=more charging ability, but still takes several days of direct sunlight to charge battery bank. That might be fine for what I need!
-
This one may have some potential if 21.5 oz is not too much weight
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0882JLJC6/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_1?smid=A3587HXKN8D5H0&psc=1 (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0882JLJC6/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_1?smid=A3587HXKN8D5H0&psc=1)
That looks promising! More solar panels=more charging ability, but still takes several days of direct sunlight to charge battery bank. That might be fine for what I need!
(..., though one should take a look at the weight of the battery and panels and think about how that compares to plugging in a quick-charge back-up battery for a few hours every week. I also assume that more reliable options that work on cloudy days, like dynohubs, have been considered and rejected.)
-
I have been touring/backpacking/kayaking/canoeing with a Goal Zero Nomad 7 solar panel hooked up to a Flip 30 battery for several years now. The fabric around the panel is super faded! But it still works great after all these years and a fair amount of abuse. On the bike, I just put the panel/battery on top of rear rack. On a normal, relatively sunny summer day, the panel will fill up that battery every day. Enough to charge iphone Xr, Garmin, lights. No problem. On longer tours, I also carry a slightly larger Anker powerbank that can charge iphone several times. It has usb-c capability...so I can quickly opportunity-charge the Anker at campsites, restaurants, etc. along the way as necessary.
This setup has worked perfectly, and I consider it pretty light weight. The solar panel is also fantastic while at camp or on off days when I can hang it on the tent and charge during the day.
The success of this system is why I decided to pass on a dyno/usb charging system...just hasn't been necessary for my needs. YMMV of course. If your are constantly touring in cloudy/foggy/rainy conditions, solar will be less than fabulous. Or in the winter months w/ shorter days and sun lower in sky....doesn't work as well.
-
What you are wanting will not work! Those little single solar panels connected to a charger does not have enough solar capability to put much of a charge into a phone, in fact from what I've read you would need 4 days of bright sunlight for those to fully charge a phone. The idea is that you fully charge the charger which is a powerbank, and you charge your phone up with the powerbank, and then charge the powerbank with the connected solar thing, but even after charging the phone you might have 2/3rds or so power left in the battery bank, and that could take a couple of days to charge, so you would be basically always getting yourself into a negative situation till eventually you can't charge the battery or the phone, and that would take 2 to 4 days depending on the size of the solar panel.
But if you get a Anker 3 panel solar 21 watt charger, this thing will charge up your phone as fast as charging up your phone by plugging it in...on a sunny day of course. The more panels you have the better the thing operates in less than sunny days but you pay the price of weight and bulk. I have 3 panel unit and it is a bit heavy but it doesn't take up much space, but that weight also includes a Anker slim 10,000 powerbank I bought separately so I could charge up my phone on dark days. WORD of CAUTION concerning these solar panels and powerbanks, you have to make sure you order one that is compatible with your phone type, android or IPhone, otherwise it won't work and you'll be pissed. The Anker solar and powerbank combined with taxes and shipping will set you back under $100, and since it is a 3 panel system it will charge faster than a 2 panel system like the Goal Zero Nomad 7 system. These panels can also be laid open on top of your rear rack, using bungie cords and the eyelets to hold it down you can be charging while riding. These are generally waterproof as well so even if it rains on your panels you'll be alright. The Nomad 7 system is no longer made and Goal Zero raised their prices a lot, thus the newer Nomad 10 dual panel unit is $100 instead of just $59 it once was, and their 3 panel unit is $150, so you can see that the Anker is the better deal. Anker too raised their prices because I got mine for $39, they're now $59, and powerbank prices went up because mine was only $13 now it's $39?! after just one year??
-
Froze said it very well. I have the 3 panel Anker and it will charge my phone nicely. I also carry a battery cache which can charge the phone. I have not gotten around to trying to charge the cache with the solar panel. The solar panel will also charge rechargeable AAs for my GPS. The other thing I haven't gotten around to implementing is rigging the solar panel on top of my panniers, etc. to charge while I am riding.
I like the idea of independent means of charging things.
-
Has anyone considered a dynamo hub? It could charge a battery pack while you ride.
-
I built out new wheels with a Schmidt SON hub, but you still need to add a USB charging device. I ordered a Since Wave light a few months ago that will do the job, but still waiting on delivery so I have not been able to use the hub. :(
-
I'm planning the same thing. Good luck.
-
Has anyone considered a dynamo hub? It could charge a battery pack while you ride.
Works well, if you can turn the wheels fast enough - upwards of 8 mph for 700C wheels; less for a Brompton....
But as I suggest above, the point is, this is a better alternative than trying to run a modern ship on solar power.
-
I just weighed my wheel replacements with the Schmidt hub and I am quite happy. I have a Surly Disc Trucker with 26" wheels that came with Alex Rims, that were not Tubeless Ready, and it was supposed to have shipped with Surly Extraterrestrial Tires, but they shipped with Conti Touring tires. The rear hub shipped was a Shimano Deore 525.
Anyway, the new setup is a Shimano Deore FM-M756 rear hub and a Schmidt SON hub in the front, (36 hole like the originals), Velocity Cliffhanger rims, laced 3X. and Surly Extraterrestrial 26X46 tires mounted tubeless (with Stan's).
I thought I would have a weight cost for the Schmidt hub but I actually wound up with a 1.8 lbs. savings on the pair by losing the tubes.
-
Personally, I think solar is better than a dynamo.
For one a dynamo system is a LOT more money to get going with it; the other thing is once you get to camp, and you figure out you need to charge something, now what? go ride your bike around the camp grounds for several hours? Of course, the downfall with solar is cloudy days, which is why you get a power bank. Also, there is zero maintenance and nothing to repair with a solar panel, a dynamo introduces a failure point because it's mechanical.
-
You charge your battery pack with your Dynamo while running your lights in day-time mode. Once you top off the bank you can charge your phone or GPS while you ride.
-
You charge your battery pack with your Dynamo while running your lights in day-time mode. Once you top off the bank you can charge your phone or GPS while you ride.
Yup, and you can do that with the solar system as well except for a whole lot less money.
-
I'm still not convinced that solar charging is practical. You'd need a fairly large array and have to keep reorienting it as you made turns. And I don't want to take that extra five watts off my leg output with a dynamo, having only about 100 watts sustainable output. I choose to use neither dyamo nor solar, take less electronics along and have a power pack that's large enough to charge the phone twice. Well, I do bring a solar charged lamp for the tent.
HikeBikeCook, as for charging priority, I will do the opposite. The phone is first prio, the helmet lights second (because they won't be used often), and the ham radio third (because it's recreational). I take a two-outlet wall wart, so I can charge the phone and the power pack at the same time.
-
Different riders have different needs, budgets, and levels of fitness with which to carry a load. The old saying; "The less you carry the more comfortable the ride, the more you carry the more comfortable the camp." My younger self could cowboy camp with no sleeping pad and a cold breakfast and be happy. My older self needs to get a decent nights sleep before riding a loaded touring bike the next day. If you gave 10 people $100 and sent them into a shopping mall to spend it, the odds of any one of them buying the same item as another is pretty slim - we all make personal choices from a vast array of products and options.
That being said, when I think of budgets I always keep at least 2 in mind - financial and weight. As I have aged, the financial budget has become much less of a worry than the weight budget. As I mentioned in an early post, I actually saved 1.8 pounds from my weight budget when adding the Schmidt Hub as part of my conversion to tubeless tires. It was a considerable hit on my financial budget since the hub was around $330 and to get USB charging capacity I also added a Sinewave Beacon light which was another $350, but a net savings on the weight budget over my current lighting. In addition I added a Schmidt SON taillight - another $95 on the financial budget but a small savings on the weight budget. I added to that an Anker Powercore 10K power bank https://smile.amazon.com/Anker-Ultra-Compact-High-Speed-VoltageBoost-Technology/dp/B07QXV6N1B/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=30AZGV46S4HDH&keywords=anker+powercore+slim+10000&qid=1644153151&sprefix=anker+powercore+slim+10000%2Caps%2C101&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEyTVc1TUlFSk1aTkRTJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwODAxNTcwMVZENDQ4SlAwUVVLSiZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwNjk0MzM1WFpGUFdPWExUUUQ2JndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ== (https://smile.amazon.com/Anker-Ultra-Compact-High-Speed-VoltageBoost-Technology/dp/B07QXV6N1B/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=30AZGV46S4HDH&keywords=anker+powercore+slim+10000&qid=1644153151&sprefix=anker+powercore+slim+10000%2Caps%2C101&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEyTVc1TUlFSk1aTkRTJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwODAxNTcwMVZENDQ4SlAwUVVLSiZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwNjk0MzM1WFpGUFdPWExUUUQ2JndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==)
- Financial budget = $22.00 - Weight Budget = 7.5 oz.
I also originally bought a 20,000 mAh multi-panel solar charger https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0882JLJC6/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_3?smid=A3587HXKN8D5H0&th=1 (https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0882JLJC6/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_3?smid=A3587HXKN8D5H0&th=1) which was fairly easy on my financial budget at $60, but a big hit on the weight budget at 1.31 lbs.
Keep in mind that most dynamo powered lights do not need to be recharged, so you save battery weight but also reduce the charging capacity you need when you get to camp. If you need to power the lights without the dynamo they can run off the power bank. Finally, I typically get 2 days out of my phone and 3 days out of my GPS unit. I ditched the numerous USB wall plugs for an 8 Port USB charger, since I have found the average user these days has more devices to charge than the average hotel room has plugs -- the net weight was about the same. Plus, when traveling with a group, and you are pirating power from an outside outlet at store, you can charge 8 devices from a single outlet. I do carry a single 110v to USB block as insurance.
-
I'm still not convinced that solar charging is practical. You'd need a fairly large array and have to keep reorienting it as you made turns. And I don't want to take that extra five watts off my leg output with a dynamo, having only about 100 watts sustainable output. I choose to use neither dyamo nor solar, take less electronics along and have a power pack that's large enough to charge the phone twice. Well, I do bring a solar charged lamp for the tent.
HikeBikeCook, as for charging priority, I will do the opposite. The phone is first prio, the helmet lights second (because they won't be used often), and the ham radio third (because it's recreational). I take a two-outlet wall wart, so I can charge the phone and the power pack at the same time.
No, you don't need a large array, you just need 3 panels for the perfect balance between weight, bulk, and charging times, anything less than 3 will weigh less, take up a little less space, but take longer to charge stuff; going with anything larger and the weight and the bulk is more but you will charge faster but only to a point. I can currently with the 3-panel system charge my iPhone as fast as the wall can, due to circuitry inside the phone I would not be able to charge it any faster, however I could plug in 2 items to be charged at the same time and due to 4 panels instead of 3, that would be a bit faster than I can now with 2 items plugged in. So, I'm good with a 3-panel system. These panels are called backpacking solar panels, so they're not large cumbersome panels.
I also only use a small/thin lightweight power bank, because with it fully charged, I can charge my iPhone at least 3 times from it, so using something bigger is not practical for my needs. I do have a small SE iPhone because it weighs less and takes up less space, it also doesn't require as much charge as a larger iPhone would.
And the pack packing panels come with eyelets built into the panels so I can strap it to a backpack, or to top of my tent that is on top of the rear rack, so I can be charging while pedaling.
-
https://www.amazon.com/Anker-Charger-PowerPort-iPhone-Galaxy/dp/B012YUJJM8/ref=sr_1_15?adgrpid=1337006705866870&hvadid=83562990367752&hvbmt=bp&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=99044&hvnetw=o&hvqmt=p&hvtargid=kwd-83563270346784%3Aloc-190&hydadcr=15105_10539284&keywords=backpacking+solar+charger&qid=1644202096&sr=8-15
The above is the Anker model, it's more compact than most 3 panel systems, and they use a higher quality solar panel that puts out more watts than even larger ones. It is highly rated in the camping world.
I combined that with this power bank: https://www.amazon.com/Anker-Ultra-Compact-High-Speed-VoltageBoost-Technology/dp/B07QXV6N1B/ref=sr_1_4?crid=IM88V8GERZ6K&keywords=anker+power+bank&qid=1644202589&sprefix=anker+power+bank%2Caps%2C342&sr=8-4
That power bank is inexpensive but since my phone is a small phone this is one is plenty for my phone, I can charge it about 3 times off this power bank. If you have a more demanding phone then you could double it to 20,000mAh, but keep in mind, the larger the bank capacity is the more it will weigh, so you have to determine if getting something bigger is going to be more weight than you want to carry.
Keep in mind too that most camp areas have electrical someplace, so if worse came to worse you can plug in. Before I got the solar charger, I went to the camp host and asked if I could plug in and they were good about that. So, using a Solar Charger combined with a power bank is for those times when you won't be near electricity, or don't want to walk or ride someplace to plug in, hang around till it's done, and then go back to your campsite. There are a few bike campers I know that all they carry is a power bank, they figure they will always be near an electrical outlet and they will plug in and wait, and the power bank is for emergencies. So you have to think about where you're going to be and whether or not electricity is within a day's ride, or if you want the convenance of the solar system. As a side note, I used my solar system last summer when the electricity went off where I live, and my wife's phone was nearly dead, so I plugged it into the solar panel and charged it up. The power only was off for 5 hours, but when something like that happens you don't know how long the power is going to be off for. I wish I had that solar thing back about 7 years ago when a summer land hurricane (what they called it) came through and we were without power for 6 days, I could have charged up my phones.