Experience with Solar Battery Chargers?

[Doc Safari]

I'm getting ready to convert all my flashlight preps to AA battery type flashlights. On top of that, I'd like to buy nothing but rechargeable batteries and a solar battery charger.

Can you guys provide some tips, links, suggestions, etc. for this? I'm new to battery recharging and literally don't know a whole lot about the subject.

[Outlander Systems]

My ham buddies all poo-poo Goal Zero products as "overpriced".

That said, their home-brew solar setups are a cobbled-together mess.

Can it be done cheaper? Sure.

But it will be an inelegant pile of wires, unless you put the time in to do it right. The couple hundred bucks they've saved DIY'ing their setups, doesn't warrant giving up the plug-and-play, or factory warranty.

YMMV.

[tb-av]

Not to mention you find Goal-Zero on sale. Often at REI. Last time I was in REI they had some new brand, forget the name though.

@DG, there are a lot of vids on YT dealing with solar charging. Also search super capacitor. You can get some panels from China. Also go to YT adn look up a guy named guerillacomms <sp> . He has an old vid where he set up a repeater on a mountain top using solar. Just recently.. .2 years later.. it went down so he retrieved it and showed what parts failed, etc. Mainly... it blown over or an animal got it and it got water in teh box that blew out the charge controller. Otherwise it worked out well.

this is with about a 16" square panel.

There is another vid that you may find under a search something like raspberry pi solar charge tracker. or something to that nature. All it does is run a little program that compares the power and turns the panel so it facing the sun for as long as possible. When that vid was made the raspberry pi was $35, but now they have a Pi Zero for $5 that would run it easily.

Sorry I can tell you exactly where it all is but there is a lot of that stuff on YT. So if you want portable, I would really think hard about a pro model like Goal-Zero.

If you want a static solar charger at your home. You can build something that should be quite robust and work for a long time.

Here is one of G-Comms vids. He will tell you what's crap and what's not. Just look back through his vids.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWVJyALfOjo

superCap added to simple setup
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlG8ir61Hto

For your AA, and something like Eneloop, are going to want one of those nice chargers that monitor the batter. There was a thread here some time back. Maybe search Eneloop as I think the exact models were discussed in that thread.

http://www.metaefficient.com/recharg...-chargers.html

So you will still need a power inverter to get 120V for the charger.

[Bluto]

Are there any other reputable plug-and-play type setups similar to goal-zero? I like their concept, but to get the power I'm looking for from their products would require a few panels and I would rather have just one or two.

There are sooooo many portable panels on amazon it makes my head spin... any known good ones?

[marcclarke]

Are there any other reputable plug-and-play type setups similar to goal-zero? I like their concept, but to get the power I'm looking for from their products would require a few panels and I would rather have just one or two.

There are sooooo many portable panels on amazon it makes my head spin... any known good ones?

http://m.thewirecutter.com/reviews/b...-battery-pack/ has a good comparison of portable solar panels and charging.

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[Co-gnARR]

Here's a link for something if you want to experiment: http://www.instructables.com/id/4-So...ttery-Charger/
That will get you started on a small scale without a major cost or skill required. Just try it for a pair of AA batteries and take it from there. That said, see post #2. Goal Zero and all those guys are heavily marked up, but they work, are scalable, have warantees and liability coverage if a fire occurs (this is a real concern if you play with bigger batteries like for solar back up, RV, etc). Plus, they do get marked down from time to time.
I keep a solar panel in my truck plugged into the accessory ('cigarette lighter') port. It keeps the battery fresh- an important thing since I travel often and leave my truck parked for weeks at a time. This panel has an integrated charge controller, so the battery won't cook. Since I live in nearly perpetual sunshine that is a big consideration. If you want to play with solar panels and batteries you need to do some studying on battery charge characteristics, charge controllers and such. It's not super complex and you can get the gist by looking at a solar panel website. They explaing the battery/panel relationship, and how a charger/controller function to protect the batteries. The concern here is to use the panels to charge batteries with out over charging them. Hooking a panel directly to a battery will recharge it, but without some kind of controller to taper/cut of the charge, you can overcharge the battery. This can cause the battery to rupture and even ignite. Not the kind of thing you want to come home to after work.
The Raspberry Pi is one of those projects just sitting in my heap of things to play with. IDK about the Pi as a solar tracker, but it is possible. The Pi is simply a computer the size of a deck of cards, running a basic Linux kernel. That said, in order to make it do anything you will benefit from learning a little bit of Linux wizardry. This is why I haven't jumped into that particular rabbit hole of hobbying. There are all sorts of helpful forums, though, and the Pi is used to teach elementary schoolers some basics of coding and such, so it's not super complicated.

[bad aim]

Outdoorgearlabs really like the Anker one and it doesn't come at a great cost.

OGL is pretty comprehensive and well-done with their reviews in the outdoors/backpacking/camping world.

http://www.outdoorgearlab.com/Solar-Charger-Reviews

[Mr. Goodtimes]

It depends on the application. Solar, while it has gotten a lot better, is obviously still very inefficient compared to a generator. For vehicle based sustainment it works really well as you have a fairly large surface area (always pointing directly at thy sky) to attach panels on the roof of a car or camper, and as long as you have good sun, you're good to go. I'd have to double check but I believe just one 90 watt panel will keep a batter topped off that's running 50qt 12v fridge. This is obviously with pretty good conditions. Cloud cover or being parked in the woods will drastically reduce the panels efficiency. This is where lots of panels and a good battery bank comes in.

In my opinion, with backpacking (especially short term <7 days) the juice isn't worth the squeeze. Weight is a big concern, you're typically moving most of the day under tree cover and the panels that are appropriate for backpacking are so small that they aren't very efficient. To make the small panels work well you would essentially have to stop for several hours in a sunny spot and setup you're panel to charge.

If I was through hiking the AT, PCT, JMT, or other long trail where I'm going to have several zero or short days, I would bring one. But for short trips I find it better to just bring a few spare batteries.

I second what others have stated in this thread. Goal zero, while expensive, works, it works well and it comes with a warranty.


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[taliv]

i've been using goal zero for years. i'm sure there's better stuff out now, but it works.

i supplement it with a power pot. and misc other stuff

[Co-gnARR]

Don't forget to factor in seasonal lights changes. My friends have a Goal Zero yard panel w/ 400w generator station (battery + inverter) which they love, but now, with the sun getting low around 3:30 PM it takes more time to charge the battery and most winter days they are not getting to 100%. This is an issue after a few days of heavy use on the generator, which they use to charge their phones, ipads, etc.