Solar chargers - any good?

[pauljm116]

Went camping for a week a while back abnd found out that my mobile battery doesnt last long, wasnt a problem as it gave me some much needed peace and quiet, but in case of emergencies would have been nice to be able to charge it. One of my friends had a solar monkey but said it didnt work. Just wondered if anyone had any experiences with a decent, reliable solar charger?

 

[R.Lewis]

I got a cheap one of Ebay with a built in Li-Ion Battery (from Hong kong, can't remember seller etc!). It does work pretty well but never fully charges phone, gets you by ok though. I think ones with a battery are the way to go though as can leave out in sun all day and recharge phone whenever, I end up putting charger and phone in pocket to charge!

 

[Paul_B]

I got the powermonkey kit that came with a flip open charger too. Its the slightly better model at about £60 with the LED display too. IMHO it is good but doesn't fully work. My reasons are as follows: -

1) The internal battery probably would only give two charges of a modern smart phone like my galaxy s2.
2) It is tempermental with regard to charging up the smartphone while on the move. I could only get it to charge with the cable bent in a particular way in my car on the drive home from a week long trip. I think it is only good to re-charge when you are stopped somewhere. And then it got part way into the re-charge and my phone displayed an error with the re-charging message. I have no idea what that was about but it had only put on about 1/6th of the full phone charge and had disgorged 3 out of 5 bars!!
3) The solar charger takes ages and ages to re-charge the battery part of it. This is despite this being one of the better solar charger panels available in the UK too. I think you need those very expensive, larger panels to make solar charging really work. I also question their effectiveness when charging on your pack as you walk.
4) I have only used it once so these are first impressions only. I could also have a duff one so I will need to try it out again to check so I can take it back if it is a wrong un.

I can see if you are ok with some of their limitations then you could do worse. I think a spare set of fully charged batteries for your phone is a better option. If you have sufficient for your trip length I am not sure they would weigh much more than my powermonkeykit. Obviously depending on your trip length.

I hope this helps. Don't let me put you off but wait for better advice. As I said above I have only just got mine and used it once so perhaps user error is part of my problems with it.

 

[troyka]

+i have a
Freeloader Pico Solar Charging Unit which is a wast of time, it actually drains my PDA of power.. and is next to no use with simple mobile phone charging..

 

[Paul_B]

That'll be the low mAH value it has. Lower the value the less juice it has then there is the charging rate. Well, I'm no expert just know enough to go for the higher value of mAH and the other property too. It should be clearly shown in the specs on the box.

 

[Lurch]

I had a Powermonkey eXplorer which I couldn't get to work at all, display didn't show up etc. I sent it back a couple of weeks ago, I've heard nothing back from them yet other than they've put me on their emailing list.
So at the moment I have precisely nothing good to say about them!

 

[santaman2000]

Solar chargers can be hit or miss. Especially if you're hiking around unable to expose it to sunlight (either it's in your pack or you're in the woods in deep shade, etc.) However there is a possible alternative. Your mobile one draws down its battery when turned on. Simply turn it off unless you need to make an emergency call and it will hold its charge for weeks (possibly months)

 

[ged]

Solar chargers can be hit or miss. Especially if you're hiking around unable to expose it to sunlight (either it's in your pack or you're in the woods in deep shade, etc.)

That's true. You really need to live a lot closer to the equator than we do in the UK to make it realistic.

However there is a possible alternative. Your mobile one draws down its battery when turned on.

That's true.

Simply turn it off unless you need to make an emergency call and it will hold its charge for weeks (possibly months)

Sadly that isn't true any more.

It used to be true, but now we have smart phones and in general the, er, smarter they are the more they seem to drain the battery even when they're turned off.

I have a ten year old Nokia 8210 which has gone all over the world with me, and although it's showing signs of its age it uses no power when it's turned off. So the battery life can be as good as the self-discharge rate of the battery. Yes, batteries do discharge themselves, even when they're not in a piece of equipment. Some battery technologies are better than others in this respect but Li-ion are pretty good. My 8210 will let me make a call even if I haven't charged it for six months, which is often the case since I'm not a big mobile phone user. I also have a phone made by HTC which I think is the 'Legend'. I don't actually care very much what it is, because to all intents and purposes it's useless to me. One of the very worst features is that the battery is exhausted in about a week even if I never turn it on. When I complained about it at the place where I got it, all the guy had to offer was "the iPhones are just as bad". [RANT]Add to that the idiotic user interface, the mountain of completely irrelevant software in it which just gets in the way and the virtually unusable (attempt at a) touch screen keyboard and you have a recipe for putting the bl00dy thing back in its box and writing it off as a bad experience. Which is what I've done, and gone back to the 8210.[/RANT]

If you have a 'smart' 'phone and you want to have some emergency battery power, take a spare battery and don't plug it into the 'phone unless you need it. You might want to practice changing the battery in the dark, when it's snowing, with cold, wet fingers. I prefer a 'phone that just makes calls, and does it when I want it to (not often at all), without a lot of messing about.

 

[knifefan]

I asked this question over on BB forum, the overriding response was to buy a 5000mah external battery, these and more powerfull ones can be found over on amazon - cheaper than the ones on e-bay.
In the uk solar chargers are a waste of time!!!!

 

[tiger stacker]

My sister gave me one from M + S as a xmas present, ideal for my previous sony ericcson. Left on car dash to charge up during day, it would
give the phone enough juice for 5 to 10 minutes worth of call. The charging time was not that long, however it did do what it said on the tin.

 

[santaman2000]

...now we have smart phones and in general the, er, smarter they are the more they seem to drain the battery even when they're turned off...
If you have a 'smart' 'phone and you want to have some emergency battery power, take a spare battery and don't plug it into the 'phone unless you need it. You might want to practice changing the battery in the dark, when it's snowing, with cold, wet fingers. I prefer a 'phone that just makes calls, and does it when I want it to (not often at all), without a lot of messing about.

I hadn't thought about the "smart phones" draining even while turned off. I had thought of simply taking a spare battery just for emergencies as you suggest; or for that matter I suppose you could just take the primary battery out of the phone and carry it seperately.

It's amazing how we sometimes look for complicated solutions to simple problems.

Having said that another amazing thing is a modern soldier's combat load. It used to consist of water and ammo. Now a big part of it is spare batteries.

 

[Frogo]

You could try one of these http://www.soscharger.com/

 

[BushSleeper]

I see a couple of people mentioning no good in cars, that is correct, they re-charge using UV light, modern car glass is designed to reduce significantly or block UV to protect the interior from fading etc.

 

[salan]

I have some from 7day shop that charge two AA cells (included and they are the 'ready to go type'), They seem to work fairly well. They charge my HTC smart phone ok (and anyother device that has a usb lead).
The great thing is that you can charge them from any computer to start with, then just top up with solar and even have many sets of batteries and swap them over if need be.
Cost about £8 on offer.
Alan

 

[Spikey DaPikey]

I have the freeloader, with the big panel as well. It'll put about half a charge into the phone from flat, but i dont think it does what it claims on the website. OK as a back up, but a charged spare battery is better.

 

[pauljm116]

Thanks for the views and opinions. Decided that solar chargers probably arent my best bet for a camping back up(especially with our weather), so have ordered a 11000mah external battery pack, should be able to keep my phone going for a week or 2, fingers crossed.

 

[Oghma]

I have the freeloader, with the big panel as well. It'll put about half a charge into the phone from flat, but i dont think it does what it claims on the website. OK as a back up, but a charged spare battery is better.

I concur with Spike - I have 2 Freeloaders, and one of the 'Supercharger', large, external panels - I ended up with 2 because I was convinced that the first one was knackered.
My experience has been that it will put about half a charge into a Motorola V3, but I've never managed to get it to deliver charge into an iPhone 3G or iPhone 4 fir longer than about 5 minutes. (To be fair, though, I haven't managed to get anything else to charge the iPhones, either - apart from the official charger, and a USB port on my Mac.)

Og

 

[Oghma]

UPDATE:
6 months on, and I have still had no luck with the standard Feeloader on the iPhone... The Freeloader Pro, OTOH, seems to work fairly well, putting almost a full charge into the iPhone 4 from a fully charged unit.
I now have a Freeloader Pro, and two clip-on battery packs which will keep my iPhone running for a few days without access to mains or car PSU, if I'm careful.

Og.

I concur with Spike - I have 2 Freeloaders, and one of the 'Supercharger', large, external panels - I ended up with 2 because I was convinced that the first one was knackered.
My experience has been that it will put about half a charge into a Motorola V3, but I've never managed to get it to deliver charge into an iPhone 3G or iPhone 4 fir longer than about 5 minutes. (To be fair, though, I haven't managed to get anything else to charge the iPhones, either - apart from the official charger, and a USB port on my Mac.)

Og

 

[widu13]

For sheer umph, how about this one? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PortaPow-...UK_Gadgets&hash=item4aafcfcbf0#ht_6286wt_1270

 

[NS40]

I had one of the freeloader solar chargers which simply didn't work, even if I charged it from the supplied USB lead it wouldn't charge the phone I had at the time (Motorolla V3).

For day to day use I carry one of the small rechargers which take a AA battery (which can give enough of a boost for a couple of extra hours standby and about 20 mins talk time. I also replaced the supplied battery for my Samsung Galaxy android phone as it was an 1100 mah and I replaced it with an 1800mah. I bought a spare 1800mah at the time so if I'm going travelling I make sure all 3 batteries are charged so I can switch them as needed.

If I'm travelling with my netbook in tow, I can do a full charge from that via usb (I do take this camping when it's a car & kids trip for watching movies and such but not for anything involving long walks or rain...)

A big help though is switching off stuff you don't need. WiFi, GPS and Bluetooth are all a major drain on your battery life so just switch them on as you need them. Likewise listening to music or watching movies can be a nice little luxury when stuck in a tent/hammock in a rainstorm but will kill your battery double quick.

Depending on the model of phone installing an app killer can also extend battery life as it switches off the unnecessary stuff running in the background. Best to read the reviews for the app first as some are worse than useless and can have a detrimental effect on your phone.