Gear

You just need to get one with a USB port. You can then charge it with your own USB cable.

If you want a decent one, you might have to spend a bit. I bought a cheap one for about £17, a Freeloader Pico. It doesn't give your phone much of a boost and afterwards, it takes all day to top itself back up.

I bought one when I was away from home with a flat phone battery and no way to charge it. I thought a solar charger would be a good idea, but I didn't know it came with no charge and takes all day to top up. Also, the manual says the first charge should come from a PC.

I got the powermonkey explorer one IIRC. It came with a charger and a kind of remote battery with an LCD display. The solar panel charged the battery and the battery bit charged your phone. Or at least that was the plan. It was after I got a Samsung Galaxy S2 and the battery lasts at best 2 days and I was off to Knoydart for a week.

Anyway I didn't actually need it as  the phone was off all the time as I never got a signal. I did try and use it on the drive home. It drained about 20% then my phone showed an error message about it beign a dodgy power source that couldn't  be recognised (not the exact message but the gist of it). Anyway the charger  was connected tot he battery while it was charging my phone and after the phone was disconnected. By the time I got home it hadn't charged it at all. It was in my car so probably not enough light energy getting to it. I think it needs to be strapped to your sack all day.

The battery bit can be charged by usb from your PC or from plug socket I think.

Overall I'd say that the solar panel isn't powerful enough and the battery bit used on its own was not good and I'd even say the charging was soooo very slow. If your home charger takes say 3 hours to charge the power monkey would take over twice that IF it works. I'd also say that with a top end smart phone you get one charge from a fully charged power monkey battery thing. I'd look elsewhere personally. Perhaps a cheaper charger that takes AA batteries?? Or that new make that has come over from USA that is in all the outdoor shops up here in Lakes area. Goal something or something goal is the brand IIRC.

SimonDawes  wrote (see)

A spare fully charged battery is probably lighter and more effieicent for this!

I agree, but someone needs to tell Apple. You can't swap the battery out on an iPhone.

 Climbing Hamster wrote (see)

im really looking for a solar charger that i can plug the phone into directly to charge it up, a friend on mine had 1 on the SWCP last year that she used to charge her camera and mobile with

Do you need it for back packing?

To charge a device directly the panel needs to be quite large. The panel on the Pico charges its own battery with 75mA at 5v in full sun light, but a phone requires probably 10 times that current.

Something like this would do the job, but it's as big as a rucksack - http://www.amazon.com/SUNLINQ-800mA-Portable-Solar-Charger/dp/B003M79D9W

Mac12 wrote (see)

SimonDawes  wrote (see)

A spare fully charged battery is probably lighter and more effieicent for this!

I agree, but someone needs to tell Apple. You can't swap the battery out on an iPhone.

Sorry but I understood and agree with the advice. You can get external battery-powered iPhone rechargers. I use one with my ancient iPod and you get one with the required cable for your specific model.

Years ago I dabbled with solar, ended up one of my ebay sales as was useless. Many drawbacks not the least is the UK weather, and need a massive panel to charge anything useful and you're generally not stationary long enough in strong sunshine to get a decent charge. I tried even pocket dynamos, and then went to batteries-charging-batteries and that is the best method, either use rechargeables which you recharge at home or highest-capacity non-chargeables. When you include they are compact don't need sunshine and very simple, and cheap, you can get in almost every shop, it adds up.

For seriously long trips away from power though, solar wins, but really needs to be in a generally sunny area, and ideally where you can leave a large stationary solar panel to charge batteries, whilst you're on the hill, away from your gadget,  which then when you return to base then recharge batteries inside your gadget. Think distant basecamp with a huge panel charging a large battery which you then connect to top-up your internal batteries.  It is about 20% more efficient to charge your gadget's internal batteries directly off the solar panel but then you're basically not having your expensive gadget in a waterproof container so run that risk.

http://www.outdoorsmagic.com/forum/forummessages.asp?v=1&urn=5&utn=50666&umn=

[quote]UKJeeper

I have both the Solar Monkey and the Power Monkey eXtreme. Personally i think the Solar Monkey is much too small for a reliable charge. If you can, get the eXtreme. It has a 9000MaH battery and a solar panel with a much larger area than the Solar Monkey.[/quote]

On Boudicca's Way, the PowerMonkey eXtreme solar panel was able to provide just enough power to keep my Samsung i8910 Smartphone going all day while running Viewranger, and transmitting GPS location data every 10 minutes to the internet.

However it was a VERY sunny weekend and the panel was strapped to the top of my pack. If there had been anything less than clear blue skies and full on sun, it would not have been enough.

The PowerMonkey solar panel was used to re-charge its own battery during The Essex Way, similar weather conditions, blazing sun, on top of the pack all day, burned bald spot! But at the end of the day, when it was needed, the battery was barely 1/2 full.

Personally i have given up on these solar panels for anything else except trickle charging their associated batteries for use when needed. I would NOT rely on solar alone to charge your devices.

Even the blurb with the batteries and panels state that you need more sunlight than you get in one day to fully charge the battery packs. 16 hours? Even in Southern England thats a stretch, but in Scotland or Wales?

Personally i'm only going to go with a battery pack, and not just trust to solar. Look at the Proporta 3400MaH and 5000MaH battery packs. Good value for money and reliable.

hey remember those one-man-band acts with string attached to the ankles operating the drum? What about a dynamo so you walk and charge?

I have a dynamo on my bike wheel it makes a decent charge, I barely notice it.

Special insoles make electricity as you walk?  A human makes about 100Watts when walking a small amount of that directed to charging an iPhone will work in all weathers.