Solar charging

[smith4188]

Can anyone reommend a touring-friendly solar charger that can be strapped to the bike? I only need to charge a Kindle and a phone. The ride will be mostly sunny (France in July, northern Spain in August, Portugal in September) but ideally it would find enough juice during June in Wales.

 

[mjr]

Note @User14044's caution. A dynamo charged battery pack is usually a much more practical option for the UK, or Europe except summer.

 

[Rymo]

The Power Monkey Extreme does sound brilliant, although the half price powermonkey explorer looks good too, it doesn't mention charging DSLR batteries though...are these often more challenging to charge off a smaller battery like the explorer?

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

I would now recommend, from experience that you stay away from the power monkey extremes. They are useless. Last year's experiments with them was a waste of money sadly.

I am looking at replacing both our power monkey and power gorilla with one from an American company called voltaic. I have meet 3 or 4 sets of tourers using it now and all of them have spoken very poorly of the power monkeys and very highly of the voltaic equivalents.

This being the one I have seen in use in the UK
www.voltaicsystems.com/fuse9w

I think I did find 1 UK company selling it last year and it is the one I will be buying if I am able to get out touring again this year.

 

[yello]

I'd need convincing that solar is the answer; a kindle AND a phone? I can't see it. My experiences of solar, and it was admittedly some years ago, suggest it'll not be enough. It took ages to recharge via solar.

I reckon dynamo charging is a better option, using a cache battery. That's if you're not going to be staying places with power points!

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

Solar can and does work. We used it on a 12 month tour of Europe. Dynamo still has restrictions and limitations, we used that as well including last year trying to charge the power monkey battery cache. We spent more time discharging it using the dynamo than charging it sadly because the power tried to balance itself out with the battery cache any dynamo usually has, or with the dynamo itself!

Both need money and work to be viable standalone solutions yet. But for the OP which is what this thread is about, France in July and northern Spain in august, his best bet will be solar for small accessories such as his kindle and smartphone (his choice he is carrying it not you) and mains for camera batteries when needed.

 

[yello]

Caveat: maybe with judicious use of both kindle and phone (i.e. only on when needed), and a fully loaded battery on departure, you might get away with it. Not sure I'd want to rely on it though.

You really do need good amounts of full sun to get effective recharging.

 

[yello]

(his choice he is carrying it not you)

That comes across as a bit of a snotty response. Feels like I've annoyed you. Hope I'm wrong

I read the op's post and I responded to it with them in mind offering opinion based on experience. I also made it known it was years old experience.

 

[jnrmczip]

Piggy back battery that you can charge up when staying somewhere with power ?

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

Solar panels do not need direct sunlight. They even work in the UK in cloudy conditions.
The days of them needing direct sunlight are long gone. Yes they work at their maximum in direct sunlight at the correct angle, but it is not sunlight they use. It is the energy from daylight that they use.

We spent our entire tour using a little AA solar rechargeable system to power or rear lights which we use 24/7 if we are cycling. I never needed anything else to charge those AA batteries and after a couple of months actually ditched carrying more than 1 set of spare batteries.

 

[smith4188]

Once we get halfway through France, full sun should be guaranteed. Does a phone AND a Kindle seem extravagant? I didn't think so. The phone is for emergency contact by others. The Kindle is for free internet, normal email contact and reading. There'll be no power sockets. This is a wild-camping only trip.

Thanks for the info so far. Anyone used PortaPow? It's getting good reviews.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

That comes across as a bit of a snotty response. Feels like I've annoyed you. Hope I'm wrong

I read the op's post and I responded to it with them in mind offering opinion based on experience. I also made it known it was years old experience.

It did come across the wrong way.

We meet plenty of people who did not understand us taking a 13 inch laptop with us for my photography. I took my big camera work me along with 2 lenses. I have no regrets in don't do, in fact it would have been the other way around. I would have regretted not taking both with us and if you have seen my photos you would understand my reluctance to interfere in what electronics people wish to carry. Virtually all of the longer distance tourers we met carried a laptop or decent netbook with them and all had met the same ' you don't need that' attitude time and time again, to the point of not saying that they had one with them.

Anyhow, a smartphone is not that easy to use long term for the web. It's not great IMO for reading books either.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

This is a wild-camping only trip.

Wild camping does not have to exclude electricity. Sooner or later you will find yourself in a cafe or tourist information office or similar where you can ask to make use of the electricity. And just very occasionally you may find the odd campsite useful despite your best intentions.

 

[yello]

Pleased to read the technology has moved on. My experience is from around 6 years ago, 2 weeks in central France where the solar charger was pretty much a waste of time. Fortunately, it was an experiment and not a necessity.

Fwiw, these days I carry a tablet and a smartphone. The latter mainly for emergency use, phone calls not for web or email. The tablet is used rarely, mainly for uploading my gps tracks etc and wifi cafes (where i can also hopefully run it on mains). I agree that a smartphone is not good for sustained web use. I use a dynamo charger and cache battery. It works so have had no need to reconsider options.

 

[smith4188]

Wild camping does not have to exclude electricity. Sooner or later you will find yourself in a cafe or tourist information office or similar where you can ask to make use of the electricity. And just very occasionally you may find the odd campsite useful despite your best intentions.

This is the £1 a day trip, so there won't be any cafes or campsites. Unless the idea has collapsed. Or we've caught so many fish and foraged so much food we can afford to splash out on a coffee. Obviously not in the UK where coffee is stupidly overpriced, but perhaps €1 for a decent one in Spain. But I'd rather have the technology working so we don't have to rely on that unlikely scenario.