My 2x30W panels before the storm cloud rolled in, on initial testing. No load.
>20W…get a DCC, or just stick with 5v USB and deal with it.
Chris
Thanks for starting this thread. I also just ordered one of the blitzwolf panels and am new to solar charging. I like to go camping and hiking. I have seen that there exist power banks that contain 3 or 4 easily removable 18650s. Perhaps that’s the way to go. Bring 18650 based flashlights, headlights and lanterns and also be able to charge phones etc.
yes, that is what Zulumoose is trying to figure out, which powerbank will work.
Many do not restart themselves automatically, they wait for the user to press a button.
For example if the solar stops working due to a cloud or shadow, the powerbank will stop accepting a charge when the sun comes back on.
I think there are two models mentioned in this thread that will work. Can you figure out which ones they are?
I can tell you the Xtar I have wont work to receive solar, not only does it require me to press a button to start charging, and select a safe charge rate, the unit is 12v, not 5v.
Ok I have received my Blitzwolf “15W” solar charger.
The 15W would be 3 amps which is ridiculous
The 10W indicated as realistic would be 2A which would be great but I wasn’t expecting it.
Reviews indicated 1.5A was realistic, but I wasn’t really expecting to see that except maybe in ideal conditions.
I was expecting 1A (5W) with a clear sky and full sun.
So I took this thing outside today, at midday with full sun and a completely clear sky.
At first I was impressed because I tried a USB light in each output socket and as soon as I stepped through the door, even in shade, the light turned on immediately. Full points for responsiveness without direct sunlight, impressive.
Then I went to direct sun, opened the panel fully, angled it to face the blazing African sun exactly, and measured the output.
650mA was the best I could get.
It’s useable power, especially if left to be collected by a powerbank, and produces about 300mA outside in the shade, which is nice, but it is not exactly what I was expecting. 1A would have kept me happy.
If I’m hiking and depending on energy to power my lights and phone, I’m just bringing extra batteries. I’m not going to mess around with portable solar, since it’s not reliable. For less weight and bulk, I can bring more batteries than I’ll need.
If I was on a month-long trek in the wilderness, that would be different. I might need solar then. Of course, with my outdoor skills, I’d be dead within a week. So, a few days worth of batteries would be sufficient.
Remember, if you’re charging a li-ion cell, depending on where it is in its state of charge (SOC), you might only see 650mA being drawn at the meter, because the cells isn’t ‘mostly’ depleted, when it’s asking for the bulk of its current during the charging cycle.
If I take a healthy 18650 that is reading 4.00v and put it in my Xtar MC1+, then onto my Sunkingdom 14w folder, I might only get a 400mA draw and that’s not the solar panel’s fault.
To test this stuff out, you need to use at cell that is below 3.5v, preferably down to 3.2v-ish and then hook it up to the solar panel/meter and see what you see.
Same deal with cell phones. If your phone is reading 85%, it’s already over the hump (most probably) in its CC/CV (constant current/constant voltage) algorithm and isn’t that demanding of current.
On my GF’s 19th floor condo balcony, facing Miami Beach and downtown Miami, after I got mine, I saw 1.78A on my meter and was pretty happy. Of course, some clouds blew by and it dropped the amperage down and didn’t go back to full power until I disconnected the cord, but it is what it is.
These are somewhat helpful panels, that shouldn’t be opened/closed until you need them, but they’re not the same as a quality rigid panel.
Rigids are the best bank for the buck if you don’t have to ruck one around town, on your back.
Of course, the Big Four are: PowerFilm (U.S. Military), Goal Zero, Global Solar and Brunton, if you have some extra cash lying around, but even their folding warranties are only 2, maybe 3 years, since the thin wires between the segments get weaker with every ‘folding’ and eventually break, like a wire coat hanger being bent often times.
Mother batteries and power banks.
Chris
Yeah, it all depends. Being in Miami, we have hurricanes and I was out of power for 84 hours last September during hurricane Irma, so it’s more of a SHTF endeavor for me.
I buy the 9v/12v battery fans from O2 Cool and they help move the stifling air and then I charged those up with the 12vdc system and that made things tolerable. I’m good on rechargeable batteries, but one never knows exactly how long the power will be out for.
My GF last power for 2-3 weeks during Irma Wilma in ’05 and you’re going to need a way to charge stuff back up after 14+ days, unless you have the cash to drive up to Disney World in Orlando and wait it out.
Chrs
I reckon one of the best, and relatively easy DIY projects to cope with something like this is to build a little platform for an old lawnmower engine to hook up to an old car alternator via a fan belt. All can be bought cheaply, and that alternator should be able to push out significant power to a large capacity 12V battery, or bank of batteries, preferably deep cycle. Being a lawnmower engine it won’t break the bank on fuel like running your car engine to do this would, and it can be left safely to run the petrol tank dry, just top up with what you need for a day, pull the cord, and walk away. All you need is the right size pulley to get the gearing to a practical level for the engine and alternator, the alternator has its own built in voltage regulation.
You know what, you’re right. My phone was on 70% so I thought it must still be looking for full current at that level. I just hooked up a fast charger to it to confirm and it drew 650mA. My mistake.
I’m running it down now to test again at a lower level, I won’t try the solar panel until the phone draws 1.5A or more from a charger.
Thanks for the info, I made a dumb assumption.
EDIT - I ran the phone down to 60%, charger pushes 1.2A to it, but the sun is within an hour of setting here. I can only get 600mA, but that’s still impressive for so late in the day so I’m optimistic of getting more than 1A a couple of hours either side of midday, which is what I am aiming for. More testing tomorrow! Ideally a day should charge 2x 18650 from empty to full. That will charge my phone twice, or once with two half-full cells then ready for lighting or other uses.
So based, on the above list, the Nitecore F1 and the Soshine E3 works well with solar chargers (ie. F1 & E3 will restart when voltage drops and then resumes).
Has anyone had experience with the magnetic chargers (Olight UC magnetic charger and Folomov A1 magnetic charger) and how they respond to solar charger (ie. on and off charging)
that sounds reasonable, thanks for sharing your results, and congrats on your new charger
Per HKJ’s review on the Olight it will not restart after a power drop.
Ok I am impressed, this Blitzwolf 2 panel was left at 9am connected to an Xtar PB2 with two Panny B’s in it that were rUn down to 0% shutoff the night before.
I verified with shadows that the Xtar has no problem restarting, it is only when used to charge something else that it needs a button push after a power cycle.
Result, even though it was in shadow for the first hour, by 1pm it was on 78, and by 2pm 100. That’s 6000mAh at least delivered to battery in 5 hours, average 1200mA rate received by battery, even with an hour of shade. At 2pm it was in shade again but still able to exceed 1A output to my phone.
I reckon kept in full sun and angled right in a day this is capable of fully charging 3-4 18650s, maybe 3 phones, total of about 10000mAh, and likely over half that on an overcast day. For best results the attached devices must be capable of sucking up the whole output though, without going into a low charge rate (in that case, have a load on the second output port as well)
Very good info and keep it coming.
Chris
You can use a car alternator to power your house as well. Some models are better then others. But let’s say your on 110v like USA. You get a DC motor or you could use your lawn mower engine. But most seem to use a DC motor. You take the schott diodes (or whatever it’s called) out the back of the altenator which converts it to DC for your car. And you have 110v about 90 amps or so. There’s a couple other small steps. YouTube removed all his videos showing most of the build. He has to leave a couple steps out but if someone contacts him he will help. But many smart people can probably look at it and know what he did or what needs to be done. Need more then 100 amp hook up 2, or need 220v.All you need is a battery to get it started. Once it’s spinning the altenator will power the DC motor. Free electricity until one or the other breaks. This is really good for hunting cabins and such. And many other places. Need dedicated power from your truck and your a contractor. The guy that was showing everyone all this was threatened with his life if he didn’t stop showing people how to do this. Because you could build one throw it in your garage or basement. And cut your power bill 80 90 percent or go off grid completely. And get altenaotrs by the ton from the junkyard. There’s only certain kind that works easier. The guy still has some videos on youtube showing it working. And telling the guys you wanna kill me come find me I’m in the middle of the woods now. Maybe a coincidence he’s had some very bad luck with injuries, if anyone is interested I’ll go dig through my YouTube histrot and find his channel. But when he was living out in the woods. All his power came from a alternators had hot water and everything. It can be mounted on some solid plywood and you have a portable generator that powers itself until the motor or alternator breaks. The DC motor can be noisy but it can’t be worse then a lawn mower engine.
Don’t have to worry about sun,rain,night etc. As long as you can jump off the motor your good. You have to run extension cords to where you want power but power strips work well and for basically free electricity not bad.
thanks for sharing your great results
congrats on your new kit
Speed4goal, you can’t honestly be falling for that can you? Do you also believe in the engines that run on water?
Unless I am misunderstanding your explanation you think that an alternator spinning can power a motor used to turn the alternator, in an endless loop, that produces excess energy you can tap off, or something like that, it’s not really clear.
If you want power out of an alternator, you have to use MORE power than that to turn it. Just because an alternator loose in your hand seems easy to spin with your fingers does not mean it is easy to turn when generating power. Push one against a bicycle wheel, for eg, and you can make it spin fast easily, but attach something simple like a couple of car headlights to it and suddenly your legs will feel the load. To get that 100W of power to the lights will take probably 150W from your legs.
Here you go they removed his other videos. He uses a car battery to get a big DC motor spinning. Once the alternator is up to rpm you can remove the car battery the alternator is making way more then enough power to spin it. It can’t power it until you get it spinning and the alternator is making current. Imma try to dig on another video site he shows it and it makes 90 amps. YouTube removed that one. This video shows the concept. But I’ll try to find it in action
My father in law is dead now but after hurricane Katrina hit he did something with his alternator and ran the house off of it. Window ac, refrigerator. TV, lights all at the same time. Bit he had to burn gas to do it. Id like to think you just misunderstood what I’m trying to say maybe a visual will help. I really wish I’d downloaded the video years back it was to detailed instead of explaong parts with a lot missing in this video he showed it all and working with cameras showing there’s no extra hidden wires taking readings of the 90 amps and it powering his house with extension cords not through the breaker
Different guy but,
This one shows more of what I’m talking about. It’s not a long video. You can get 120v or 220v from a alternator and make it DC or ac. Whether you want to make a portable welder or portable generator.
I kick myself for not downloading thaf other video. He showed how to set it up more then this guy and showed it powering real appliances not just light bulbs. He had it ran to some kind of box thingy. IDK know all about electronics like this people do can’t remember it’s name. And somehow my father in law turn his alternator into a generator for their house. Me and my wife didn’t know each other then. I never got to ask him. Maybe his son will know how he did it. It wasn’t a power inverter, he didn’t something and ran wires. But he was German and very smart I’ll keep digging need to go off YouTube to probably find the good stuff. That first video is poo poo to the first one that was up for months. YouTube told him he can’t show it in its completed form. No step by step or anything. He played the threatening voice mails he had. It really tickled some people. Which any voice mail can be suspicious but a lot of his videos disappeared after that. The really good ones. It took work and wires and doodads I think converters, I really don’t know hooked up. but imma try my damnest to find that video . But it worked running realmultiple appliances at once. But the base of all these is a DC motor and alternator once it gets going it’s going you could leave the battery on but with some set ups you don’t have to. You can run 12volt back to it once power is up and not need the battery anymore. Just like your vehicle you need it to get started.but once it’s started you can pull your battery out alternator powers everything. Instead of a engine, which needs gas you have a DC motor and it can feed itself. But you’ll always need a battery or a wall plug to get it started.
Here’s one with a small gas motor but a big DC motor could be used instead. 500 volt car alternator - YouTube
I can’t believe I actually watched the whole thing, there is nothing there. He doesn’t even understand that 90 amps at 12v is not the same as 90 amps at 220v.
You cannot get more power out of an alternator than you put in, it really is that simple. The mechanical power to drive it will always be more than the electrical power generated.If you use a 100W motor to turn your alternator, as soon as you try to draw more than maybe 70W out of it everything will grind to a halt.
This guy shows step by step how he does it. And uses step up transformers and actually plugs in some stuff but it’s different then what the original guy did his. It’s easy to critize the first video and I warned that above. It’s a turd to what the original couple videos were. But he wouldn’t be the first guy to be harassed by big industry. To shut up about things. Guy plugs in way over 100 watts but yes a gas motor. But a 100 waft DC motor this would power easily. 300 watt halogen, multiple 100 watt bulbs and a hair dryer hundreds of watts at a time he’s plugging in. Spinning around 2000rpm. You have to do stuff to the winding and stator on some models. Here you can see a lot more the 100 watts being used. There is something to it. After Katrina there wasn’t power here for months we were literally ground 0 40 feet of water the military couldn’t get in for 4 days all bridges were destroyed or severely damaged they didn’t lose their food and had air conditioning. TV all from the truck and the alternator it was Probably similar to how this guy does it. To get 220 you need a 3 phase alternator. But anyways How to get 120v AC out of a car alternator - YouTube