Portable solar thread

>>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.

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>>818413
the bigger the better?

What things do you keep charged with your 50W?

> ordered on Amazon today

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

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.

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.

>>818408
I have this.

>>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

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

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

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.

>>818588
Review?

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

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

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

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

>>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?

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>>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.

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

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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.

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

The solar panel is junk IMO.

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>>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.

>>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

>>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

>>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.