Solar Phone Chargers/Battery Bank

Some of the Solar Phone Chargers/Battery Banks on the market have an advertised capacity of 10 to 20 thousand maH. Must have UltraFire cells in them??

Do any of you have any experience with them?
Bill

Inside are Li-Polymer battery packs, I have one before. Left in the sun charging accelerate battery aging and eventually died with light usage. Useless for me.

It depends. More and more power banks nowadays utilizes genuine LG/Panasonic/Samsung cells inside. Newest versions of 10,000mAh and 20,000mAh power banks with real capacity use 3 and 6 3300mAh+ cells. Fake capacity are not as common because now people have basic knowledge about batteries.

There are also the LiPo type but they are less common now that Li-ion price has dropped and it is a much safer battery (LiPo can’t be stored fully charged).

I have tried Xiaomi, Aukey and Anker powerbanks and they do contain rated capacity. So it all depends on which brand and model you buy, of course if you want a high quality product you shouldn’t look for the cheapest.

What capacity/size/price are you after? There are tons of good choices out there.

These kind of power banks were never designed to work like advertised, they were more a novelty item rather than a useful one. A solar panel that size simply can’t put out more than 3W, expect 1.5-2W after losses. A modern phone needs about 10wh to fully charge, so a even full day under the sun might not be enough to deliver a full charge.

To go solar and not only charge the device but storing energy as well, you should consider a larger solar panel. I have seen some foldable 20W rated panels deliver 12W which is very decent, but those are not cheap and usually costs around $60.