Is there a way to modify a solar charger................

so it could work with Li-ions? I have this one and it does a great job on Ni-Mh. But with most of my lights now running Li-ions I realize that in a power outage I’m still tethered to non-solar type power sources to charge them.

http://www.harborfreight.com/portable-household-battery-solar-charger-68690.html

Here’s a U-tube that goes into its particulars……

Hmm... What I would probably do is measure the output of the bare solar panel and go from there.

Have you heard of Cottonpickers ?

http://www.cpfmarketplace.com/mp/showthread.php?229002-FS-Solar-Powered-amp-USB-Chargers-2-panels-added

There’s a small solar charger for small lithium batteries :wink:

Many li-ion chargers use 12v wallwarts. Solar to 12v sla or solar controller possible.

Yes there is, in the BLF chargers sub-forum, there is a thread with lots of pictures. I listed all the parts you need in post7 (link), all from different ebay sellers. The $2 lithium boards use the tp4056, one of the best cc/cv charging chips, which is what cottonpicker uses in his chargers. You can add all these components to your current battery holder, add an On/Off switch, and you’re set.

i have 4 boards from different sellers, all are tp4056. there's the 54,56,57 etc, don't know much about them, but in the CPF forum discussion of this board, they were saying cottonpicker swapped the chips in his chargers to 4056, but i'm not spending $27 just to find out what he uses, I got my last one for $1.75.

I just checked and cottonpicker uses the tp4054.

"What integrated circuit is inside these chargers? LTC4054"

(TP is the chinese made version of LTC)

but when the switch is set at 1.2v I get a charge reading of 2.89 to 3.06v at the batt contacts. When it’s switched to the 9v setting I’m getting a ‘pulse charge’ of about 12v. At 9v for whatever reason it isn’t a steady range like for 1.2v batts but goes from 1 up to 11.89v about every 3 seconds and back again. Sometimes it even blip peaks to 14v.

This unit only measures 6 1/2” x 2” x 6 3/8” and is very light but sturdy. I would prefer to keep it as light and self-contained as possible. I need to study the Cottonpicker approach and see if that can be achieved cleanly.

Willie, yeah I could do that but I really want to keep the uber-light portability of this unit without going solar to sla. I realize there are some pretty small 12v sla’s but even they still weigh a comparative ton. If I could stuff this thing with a Li-on or two I’d be dern happy. It may take a long time to charge a 26650 but I’m not looking for speed here. Just capability.

Did you see this one:
http://www.intl-outdoor.com/5v-400ma-monocrystalline-solar-panel-p-462.html
together with this one
http://www.intl-outdoor.com/ml102-usb-charger-for-18650-26650-battery-p-243.html
it could make a decent loading device I think, although I don’t own it (yet…)

That kit is not bad at all. 4 or 5 of those panels would work pretty good.

Keith