Do you have a solar charger for sale?
not have 
Get em reviewed by our trusted battery gurus here…then we will talk
I bought my 18650 from one of the trusted posters that pull them from laptop packs and sell for like a buck each plus priority mail shipping, 6 to my mailbox cost about $12.
I would use the solar to charge a conventional 12v car battery, then plug in my imax b6 clone hobby charger for Lion use.
I have a foldable 7W solar charger with USB output and ML-102 and it charges pretty well with a fair amount of sun. I have also used it with the Soshine SC-S7 with good results.
That said, I would like to make a slightly larger setup with a 12V system which could be used with any 12V charger…
What would you guys recommend for a portable charging system under 100 buck USD?
Something I can use with my Xtar VP2 with the 12V car charger adapter.
Was wondering something similar myself.
This is what I was thinking might work but who knows?
Solar panel to one of these
DC-DC 3-40V to 1.5-35V 3A Buck Converter Stepdown Module
then set the out put to around 5V and use one of these
TP4056 1A Li-ion Battery Charging Module
is this logical or not?
It depends on how efficient your setup needs to be. That TP4056 uses a linear regulator for voltage control, which dissipates excess voltage as heat. That buck converter is a switch-mode regulator, but it runs at a relatively low frequency, and so probably isn’t particularly efficient.
your website is useless without buy now button and prices.
and your offerings belong in commercial sellers.
Solar directly is going to have an output that varies from nothing to full power in a semi random fashion as clouds or other objects block the sunlight.
Lion chargers need a constant power source over several hours time unless somebody builds some kind of smart charger designed to deal with periodic power drops during charging, best to put some kind of storage large enough to accommodate any drops between the solar and the charger.
I’ve charged 18650’s using a Miller ML102 connected to the Goal Zero AA battery pack which was charging from the solar panel. The battery pack provides stable power to the Miller charger and the AA battery pack is designed for non-constant power.
Will this boost power supply help? Put it between the solar panel and the TP4056 module.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/191187457756?\_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
The OP has not been back to share his thoughts on what type of solar power/panel he is going to use to charge the 18650. If a solar cell from the most common landscape lights is used, then yes a boost circuit would be required.
90 kW solar farm, nickel-iron storage batteries, line inverter, any decent hobby charger… Voila, you’re good to go! You might want to add a 50 kW or so standby generator incase the sun burns out.
I’m interested in a solar charger also, but it would be have to be portable enough to fit in a backpack for a small camping trip!
I’ve been looking around for this, no one ever really posted something that has a small foot print and viable solution.
A Goal Zero works but as I mentioned upstream I connect the AA battery charger to the Goal Zero and a Miller ML102 to the battery pack to supply stable voltage to the Miller.
Could you show me how that setup looks like?
I posted about a small portable solar charger some time ago. The posts can be seen here:
I ended up using an ML102 to charge an 18650 and used one of the fasttech dumb chargers for nimh aa’s. It puts out about 160 ma so there isn’t a lot of risk of overcharge. I tried using my sanyo smart usb charger (for aa’s and aaa’s) plugged into the ML102 but it seemed to heat up and considering that I don’t have a spare I did not experiment further.
There are lots of suggestions in that thread including mention of “cottonpickers” small systems. It would be worth doing a search for his units as there is lots of information available in threads that he has contributed to.
John.
The ML102 put up with quite a range of voltage and amperage (eg. cloudy vs clear sunlight). Whatever battery box is used needs to be tolerant of this.
John.