Silvercrest solar charger

[contadino]

Hmmm...so mine's a Belkin, one friend has an Ankler and another has one of those round ones from an airport 'duty free' shop and they all lose charge. The Ankler one seems to hold charge the longest - 2 weeks before it dropped a notch. Mine drops a notch after either 9 or 10 days, and the round one only holds charge for about a week.

Are they all going to explode?

 

[mjr]

I wouldn't trust a power bank that's losing charge in a week. It does sound like something's faulty.

Damnit. I bought one of those chargers. Oh well, it's just a very expensive power bank.

I should know really. Last year's solar panel is twice the size and takes a few days of UK sunshine to charge 1000mAh AAA batteries, so I'm foolish for thinking the Silvercrest could possibly work here. Solar panel tech isn't developing that quickly.

If anyone's looking for a cheap power bank, I use something that looks very much like http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PORTABLE-...ER-WITH-USB-LEAD-FOR-SMARTPHONES/291578678487 to power my bike-camera and occasionally top up the phone. At the other extreme, I've a veho pebble that can power a laptop for an hour or two.

 

[mjr]

I should know really. Last year's solar panel is twice the size and takes a few days of UK sunshine to charge 1000mAh AAA batteries, so I'm foolish for thinking the Silvercrest could possibly work here. Solar panel tech isn't developing that quickly.

Actually, it's slightly better than I feared. Basically if it's kept inside double-glazing, the Silvercrest charger gives one "free" phone charge about every 5 days (1500mAh 3.7v battery, from about 10% to 90%) at this time of year and about every 3-4 days when I was cycling with it on the handlebars. The status monitor doesn't seem that great - it stays on one light and three lights for longer than zero, two or four=all.

 

[mjr]

Just another update: standing it outside and sloping it vaguely towards the sun, it's currently recharging its internal battery in about an afternoon, which is good enough to keep my GPS-tracking podcast-listening phone working and much better than my previous solar panels.