New Gear - Solar Charger

 
Because I am planning to do this upcoming hike solo, and in case I want to take long hikes alone in the future I want to be able to at least keep a minimal charge on my phone. After all, there's this big sun in the sky sending power down all the time, if I can just grab some.

You may remember that I won a solar charger two years ago (see link below). I said right up front it would probably not be a backpacking item because it was too bulky. Well, it was a complete bust. It wouldn't even charge the phone a little bit. I gave it away.

But then I saw an ad for this little thing, and it only cost $20. I'm willing to try something at that price, and it was getting great reviews. It's just called Solar Charger. It's about 3" x 5" and less than 1/2" thick - nice size.



But it came with NO directions. It was supposed to have a flashlight. I put it in the sun and it seemed to charge. The little blue lights lit up when I pushed the button. It did come with a cord, and a carabiner, although the one supplied was too small to go through the hole. I replaced it with the one you see here.



But I couldn't get the flashlight to turn on, and it wouldn't charge my phone at all. Bummer.

Ester managed to find some directions on line, which I can't find again, but no matter. You push the button twice in succession to turn on the flashlight.



I don't think I'd want to use this much because it would probably deplete the charge pretty fast. But the big issue was still to charge the phone.

Brainwave! I tried a different cord. It works. So the cord that came with it is no good either. But I've been trying a number of scenarios with my own cord. This picture is not an accurate representation. There's no way you'd ever get a phone to 100% with this. The phone was fully charged when I wanted to take a picture. But if you look closely you can see that it does say "charging" with the phone plugged into the charger.



If the phone is down around 15%, I can get it up about 10 percent more. If it's at 70% the charger will only bump it up about 4 points.

Today, I tried to keep it plugged in while walking to see if it would just transfer the energy it was taking in to the phone, but that did not seem to work.

I think the bottom line is that it will allow me to keep the phone at a level where I can post a couple of pix on Facebook a day and send my position to someone for safety, and still have enough charge to send a message if I need help (and can get a signal, which is probably going to be an issue).

So, for the price, I think it will work. Weight with carabiner and cord: 6.5 ounces. Acceptable.

The other electronic problem is the camera, which takes special batteries and can't be charged without an outlet. I'm going to take three and hope they will last for the 7 or 8 days between civilization visits.

In other news: I've been trying to get this hike planned, but it's a challenge. There's not a lot of information, and there could be some problem areas. I'm pestering some good friends a lot for info. Stay tuned.

	See Heli Take Charge Charger
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Winner!

 
The North Country Trail Hike 100 Challenge is giving away gifts every month. You are entered just by signing up. The only thing on the list that I was even interested in winning was the.... solar charger.

Guess what. I won it!



So, today I set about figuring it out. We have entered the Fahrenheit 451 era of directions... all pictures without words, but I've got most of them deciphered.

It's actually a lantern, flashlight, and signal light as well as a charger.



I set the panel outside in the sun today to charge it up. I'll try charging my phone with it overnight.

This will be an unlikely backpacking gear item. It's too bulky. Also, there are two electronic items I would like to charge while on the trail: my phone and my camera battery. There is apparently no way I can make this work for the camera battery. I'd have to switch cameras, or just use my phone camera (which I don't think much of).

When I'm car camping, I can charge both those items in the car, making this superfluous.

Nevertheless, I'm tickled to be able to try it out and see if there are times when it would be useful for me. I'll do a better review when I've tried it more.

	See SPW Hike- January 2016
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Sun Power!

After church we walked uptown and took a look at a visiting celebrity. Here it comes.



We knew it was coming to town because it made the front page of the paper yesterday. What fun! The leader of the team is a girl from Ludington. But what is the team?


It's the Sun 02 Team. Huh?


This is the University of Michigan Solar Car Team and their 2010 car. It won the American Solar Challenge race last year and came in third in the World Solar Challenge race in Australia.

This car weighs a bit over 500 pounds (including the battery), and the 2011 car weighs just over 300 pounds, so the team is hopeful of an even better finish in the World Challenge this fall. The top speed is about 105 mph, and an average race speed is 65 mph. Each car has a whole support team with vehicles that go ahead (to make sure there aren't things like dead animals in the road, and vehicles behind to analyze computer data and tell the driver if he/she is driving efficiently, which is more than just solar efficiency. The efficiency of the solar cells is up to 28%- a big improvement from early solar technology.

The 2011 car looks sleeker- the team was handing out postcard pictures. You can click to see a picture of the Quantum

So now you know that I like engineering things too.

See University of Michigan Solar Car