With the advances in solar power and increased availability of small consumer solar chargers I am wondering if anybody here has any recommendations regarding specific products? My ideal product would be able to charge or trickle-charge AA / AAA / 18650 batteries as well as a smartphone and preferably be highly portable so I could use it on extended backpacking trips and visits to a remote cabin.
I’m ok if it might take a couple days to fully charge a couple batteries as I can be frugal in consumption.
There are more sophisticated options, but I have used the solar cell top from a pathway light that I got for $2 a while back from Walmart. The battery compartment is AA sized, but you can solder wires to the contacts and charge other sizes. The one I have is about the same size and shape as a can of tuna.
There are a lot of recommendations for Goal Zero products currently. They have a AA (4x) charger pack that doubles as a battery pack for charging devices.
I highly recommend Goal Zero, but there is little that is Budget about them (good for engineering and quality - bad for budget pricing).
You can certainly make up your own. Or
Plus systems from Brunton, look at Cabelas catalog, Northern Hydraulics, Edmunds Scientific, Illumination Supply, etc - for whole units, and more pieces to make up your own.
There are a few really interesting website suppliers that cater to the off the grid people, good to look there as well.
I recently picked up some of the Brunton products that were discontinued($30 panel and $30 9000mAh battery pack), have yet to use them though. Also “budget” wasn’t exactly mentioned, it may be implied on this site, but some of the cheaper options out there also tend to suck.
I use a couple of panels and chargers from Cottonpickers for my Li-Ions as well as some smaller panels from Intl-Outdoor.
You can use an ML-102 charger/USB supply loaded with an 18650 to act as a buffer between the panels and an Eneloop USB charger which does a good job but seems to require a reliable 500mA supply. The Eneloop USB charger will do 1 or 2 AA or AAA cells at a time.
The small panels from IO come with mini or micro USB male plugs attached, but I did some soldering to run two cells in parallel. They put out the claimed 400mA each in strong sun. (800mA for two)
The Cottonpickers panels come with USB female sockets fixed on.
i haven't used the other brands listed here but by all accounts they are quite good also.
Just keep in mind that the panels need to be constantly adjusted to face square to the sun for maximum output.
I bought 2 of these on sale for about 4 or 5 dollars each and they seem pretty versatile, I wonder how long they would take to charge a 18650. They are too slow for routine use, but for a prepper they are adequate until the right solar charger comes along.
