Solar Panels

[jmace]

Any one ever used one of these..i dont plan on using it the way this guy does but I wonder if anyone has tried it ? leave it on the tent while your out..charge up the DVD and the ipod..probably generally suited to heli approaches, although less than a pound and the size of a paperback..and less than 100$ can

 

 

Can Tire

[fern]

not much incident solar energy when the cells are pointing straight back off your pack. The sun is UP ... that's where the panel needs to point to get anywhere close to the 6.5W they claim.

[jmace]

it says it can charge up the powerbox 800.. which has "Three household outlets to power up to 600W of appliances and electronics simultaneously"

 

I wish it said how long this takes or how long you can run 600w of electronics simultaneously

 

Power Box 800

 

I just want to have enough juice for a, ghetto, ipod and dvd recharging

 

gonna go make some clerks afternoon today..askin questions he/she has no idea about

[Alpinfox]

I saw a few of those (maybe different brand) on Denali. One Japanese team was using it to charge up the batteries of their video camera. They were shooting one of their teammates doing the first snowboard descent of the Messner Coulior.

 

One of my ex-housemates who did a lot of remote field biology work used some kind of portable solar panel to charge a laptop and sat phone.

 

It doesn't seem like it would take very much juice to charge an iPod.

[fern]

 

assuming things are 100% efficient 1hr of charging from a 6.5W panel will give you 1hr of output to a 6.5W device. So to run your 600W of household appliances you'd need close to 600 Hrs of charging. And that is getting full charging at 100% incidence of sunlight, no clouds in the sky etc. Figure you maybe get 8hrs of sunlight per day, if you could get perfect collection for every sunlight hour it would take 75 days to charge your PowerBox enough to run your 600W of appliances for 1 hour.

 

That said, you could probably get a reasonable solar charging system for your swinging backcountry bachelor AV system. Those devices are usually pretty low power. That Canadian Tire one looks kinda jingus to me, but there are lots of those types of things around

[jmace]

thanks

[foraker]

No sun required

That said, I have an iSun (pre-Coleman) that I picked up off eBay, for about $30.

[jmace]

Fern was right the can tire solar panel was jingus..barely powered up the ipod..didnt even break out the DVD..good thing the weather rocked the nation for two weeks

 

maybe try the 12 w next year..

[mikebell]

http://www.solio.com/v2/

 

Solio is lighter and smaller with less output. It has its own battery so you can charge an ipod twice before relying on the sun and it's small enough to hang off the back of your pack. It chargers in less than a day in good weather on glacier. In normal overcast cascade weather conditions it takes a few days to fully charge but you can still get power for two or three hours of tunes a day.

 

http://www.solio.com/v2/