Solar chargers for mobile phones and ipods?

Question

I'm going camping for a month soon and wondering if anybody could recommend a good solar mobile/ipod charger to buy.

I was thinking of this.....

http://www.solarkitsdirect.co.uk/Solar-Travel/Freeloader-Globetrotter/p-84-246/

or this.....

http://www.ethicalsuperstore.com/products/better-energy-systems/solio-mobile-phone-and-ipod-solar-charger/?gclid=CMme6ueUgJQCFQyI1QodMQ7XWg

Answer 1

I have used a different model but first let me comment on the two you are interested in:

The Solio can recharge its' 1600mAh battery at 155mA which mean that it will take about 10 hours in direct sunlight to recharge when fully depleted.

The Freeloader can recharge its' smaller 1000mAh battery at 120mA in about 8 hours but it has about 38% less capacity.

The battery capacity is what it can store when nothing is attached to it. Some or all of this stored energy can later be transferred to the device.

What that all means:

Check your mobile phone battery for the mAh capacity then divide by the output of the solar cell - that is how long it will take in hours of direct sunlight to recharge it.

This is the one I have used in the past and found it to be perfect for my needs - I borrowed it from a friend:

http://www.earthtechproducts.com/p7.html

Pros:

It has nearly 3 times the solar panel output 320mA so things will recharge quicker.

It is much lighter only about 85g vs. 450g for the Freeloader.

Cons:

No internal battery so when it is not attached to anything it is not gathering power for later use.

Generally look for "Rated output in Direct Sunlight" then use that number to determine how many hours on a sunny day it will take to recharge what you are attaching to it. If the unit has an internal battery you can use the same math to determine how much it can store.

This is a good site to look up the capacity of your iPod since you can't open it to check the battery like your cell phone or GPS.

http://www.ipodbatteryfaq.com/

Hope that helps!

Answer 2

look into how long they take to charge, and there is one that has a built in capacitor..  they will take all day to charge - or using the capacitor, you can leave the charger in the sun and then plug into recharge overnight.

I haven't got one so can't comment further

Answer 3

you can buy it everywhere!