Is anybody making a good quality solar light? I see tons of cheapies online but don’t see a whole lot (or any) by a big name. Ideally I’d like to find a solar powered lantern that can be used as a table light or a tent light. Suggestions? I am all set with battery charging options, this is mostly just a curiosity if I can find one that would be suitable and self contained
I would think the problem would be size of the panel required to recharge internal batteries for a meaningful brightness/runtime.
I’m not really a fan of integrated solar charging products, I worry about cells cooking in the sun all day, at least with a remote panel, the device can be tucked in the shade somewhere.
For a hypothetical situation: I think the BLF LT1 can sustain full output for 6 hours on included sofirn 3000mah cells, worst case you’d need to charge fromflat in one day, which would be 44.4w/h… Plus 15% for charging insufficiencies, you need 51Wh.
Depending on the season, you might not have much direct sunlight so would need an oversize panel to supply the sufficient charging power.
Dunno if it’s what you want, but I got/reviewed these a while ago. Pretty nice and work well.
Throws CW and WW (your choice) in a bunch of modes, and while I can’t mount these outside (original plate is bigger’n the replacement’s, so would leave a gap/hole), I do use them inside for the cats. One near the litterbox turns on when anyone comes down the stairs, and lights up the area for a minute or two, staying lit as long as there’s any motion.
If I turn on the light, the lantern goes off. Doesn’t charge that much for the short amount of time, but has a flap-covered usb port so you can quick-charge it when the low-charge red light comes on. Don’t have to, as the other one (they come in a tupac) sits on the windowsill charging. I just swap ’em as needed.
They press-fit onto the mounting-stump and are pretty easily removable. Was toying with the idea of mounting one to the wall inside vs freestanding, but nah.
Several members of my sons boy scout troop use Luci light solar lanterns. I honestly thought they were a stupid gimmick, like those hand crank lights… but they really surprised me. They lash them to the outside of their packs on the hike in, clip them ontop of their tents or just leave them out in the sun when we set up camp. More than enough battery solar-charge to last the evening from sun down to ~10:30 lights out.
They’re only ~50-100 Lumens… IIRC. But we always had enough of them suspended around camp. Combined with a decent headlamp, night dilated vision and lighting was never a real problem. Some variants had visible PWM though. YMMV with that, for me personally that’s a deal breaker so I never got one.
What kinds of camping are you doing? My scenario above is mainly for backpacking where the pack size and weight constraint of the individual is the most important factor to consider first. Thousands of lumens are worthless if you can’t lug it in 5+ miles and climb 1000 feet over technical terrain.
If you don’t need a highly man-portable system, your options expand considerably into large battery banks and dedicated solar arrays.
As far as quality, recognized brand names go… no I can’t really think of any.
this is what we have used for ~11 years when we go camping….
they still shine really long with at least 2 hours of direct sun on the panel.