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Portable Solar Panels
Saturday,14 July, 2012
10:26 am
Jersey
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Monday,11 April, 2011
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Hi There

 

Anybody know anything about Portable Solar Panels for charging life's little luxuries such as Ipads, Ipods, phones etc. There seems to be lots on the Internet, but where to start. Can anybody recommend a particular brand / model that might suit. They sound to be a good idea, are they, or are they just a gimmick.

 

Regards,

 

Keith

Enjoying the Dream ( Keith & Nicky http://narrowboatboysontour.blogspot.com/ )
Monday,16 July, 2012
7:33 am
Southam, Warwickshire
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Hi Keith,

Sorry for taking so long to reply to this; I was away at the weekend. I don't know much about solar panels I'm afraid so I've asked Allan Cazaly if he can share his solar panel knowledge with you.

Don't you have an inverter on board. Can't you charge your devices from that? They're all low power electrical items so any inverter should do it.

Are you thinking about living on a narrowboat? Find out the REAL cost of a life afloat
Monday,16 July, 2012
8:24 am
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NB Badger Sett said
Hi There

 

Anybody know anything about Portable Solar Panels for charging life's little luxuries such as Ipads, Ipods, phones etc. There seems to be lots on the Internet, but where to start. Can anybody recommend a particular brand / model that might suit. They sound to be a good idea, are they, or are they just a gimmick.

 

Regards,

 

Keith

 

Hello Keith and Nicky,

 

I do not know very much about the small portable Solar panels.  However, form my "Hands-On" experience with larger types of installation, I am able to give you my opinion.  This may help

 

My personal view is that Solar Panels only produce small amounts of current anyway, and one must have an efficient digital control to make use of ALL the energy produced to be viable. (Even the large arrays on roofs) and it is unlikely that a small portable unit would be a good investment for a tablet of small laptop.

However, for a mobile phone, with a small demand most of the time, (As it is on standby), it might be a worthwhile investment.  I would not recommend this for a business phone, or heavy mobile phone use.  I have an "Android" "Smartphone".  It has quite a high discharge rate on standby.

Even though I don't use it much, I charge it every morning, or it lets me down "lateish" on the second day without a charge.  This could be because the battery is beginning to fail.  I have had it for about 18 months now!

Back to your enquiry. My view is rather than purchasing a small Portable Solar Unit, I would be more inclined to purchase a charging socket that plugs straight into a cigar lighter socket in a car (Or narrowboat with 12-DC).  If this is not available to you and you do your shopping with a bicycle (No electrics) then it may be worth having one of the small units and leave it plugged into you phone all the time.  This would help keep the phone's battery in tip-top condition.  It largely depends on whether you have easy access to other means of charging, like a 240-ACV on your boat

I don't think my comment is much help to you but it may help to have another viewpoint.  (Most of the small solar units for phones etc., on other peoples boats, are usually in a drawer, or all dusty on a corner shelf and don't seem to be used much.  Whether to can come to your own opinion, bearing this in mind, I don't know but this is another pointer to how useful they are

Sincere regards, ~Allan~
Monday,16 July, 2012
6:39 pm
Jersey
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Hi Paul and Allan.

 

I'll answer you both in one for ease if that is okay.

 

Yes we do have an inverter and could charge everything through that, but maybe I'm worrying too much about power consumption. Allan, I owe you a reply from a previous post on basic Solar Panels and am due to be on board the last week of July first week of August when I was going to do a power (or try to) audit and get back to you.

 

You mention a car charging socket and I had thought about this also, although there isn't actually one on board. I'd googled them and found some with an in line fuse, but being new to boating I'm not really sure what would or would not be a 12v cable. I'd thought about just wiring it into the cable running into the radio, would this be okay.

 

Maybe the car charger socket is the way to go if you can give me any other pointers in that direction.

 

Thanks for the feedback,

 

Keith

Enjoying the Dream ( Keith & Nicky http://narrowboatboysontour.blogspot.com/ )
Wednesday,27 February, 2013
5:32 pm
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Bit of an old thread but thought somebody might be interested in this free draw being run by Sunstore Solar – http://www.sunstore.co.uk/sola…..-kits-draw. This is the portable solar kit we're giving away.

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