Solar charger or dynamo

Cycle-touring, Expeditions, Adventures, Major cycle routes NOT LeJoG (see other special board)
andyt414
Posts: 5
Joined: 11 Aug 2015, 5:17pm

Solar charger or dynamo

Post by andyt414 »

Hello everyone,
Some advice please. I'm planning a solo camping tour next year in France and need to address the issue of charging a phone and GPS. I've looked at various Shimano hub Dynamo systems but wonder if a solar charger would be a better option. I have no experience of either equipment. Any help would be appreciated....
ChrisF
Posts: 665
Joined: 22 Mar 2014, 7:34pm

Re: Solar charger or dynamo

Post by ChrisF »

I have one of thesehttp://www.allmacshop.co.uk/proddetail/96840/Just-Mobile-Gum-Max-Duo-Universal-Charger-11200mAh/ (although I didn't pay that much for it).
It will need charging once a week, probably. I don't think there's a solar solution good enough for a bike, unless perhaps you're guaranteed full sun every day. A dynamo with the necessary voltage controller to charge your devices will cost more than this battery pack.
Chris F, Cornwall
nmnm
Posts: 470
Joined: 14 Nov 2010, 6:03pm

Re: Solar charger or dynamo

Post by nmnm »

Quilkin has it right but I'd grab a cheaper battery pack so I could leave it charging in the toilet block without toooo much fear. Can recommend the Anker ones.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mobile-Phone-Ba ... =329078031
PrinterJohn
Posts: 110
Joined: 10 Dec 2010, 9:46am
Location: Buckinghamshire
Contact:

Re: Solar charger or dynamo

Post by PrinterJohn »

In France I use a Goalzero Nomad 7 solar panel charging a 10,000mA lithium pack ideal. Opened out and attached over rear rack when cycling, then more efficiently angled at the sun when campsite reached. This kept a Garmin + Nexus 7 tablet charged on St. Malo to Narbone trip last year. The Goalzero comes with a battery pack holding 4AA batteries, but this is too small, just get a larger pack from Maplins or off the internet.
dandru
Posts: 39
Joined: 3 Mar 2015, 1:27am

Re: Solar charger or dynamo

Post by dandru »

The problem with solar, it's finicky, whereas the big battery is a good option providing you can find a power point, but make sure it charges at 2 amp rather than the common 1 amp, which takes all night and some more. The dyno is trickle feeding power into the battery, all the time, and the occasional short power charge gives it a boost, that would be my preference in areas where charging is difficult, or you don't want the hassle of finding a power point every so often.

Talking about solar arrays while cycle touring.
http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page ... id=2404144
PrinterJohn
Posts: 110
Joined: 10 Dec 2010, 9:46am
Location: Buckinghamshire
Contact:

Re: Solar charger or dynamo

Post by PrinterJohn »

I think people are averse to solar as they have been conned by tiny solar phone chargers. The Goalzero7 panel is probably at least 10 times the output of any panel most people have encountered.
dakari-mane
Posts: 70
Joined: 1 Aug 2013, 3:56pm

Re: Solar charger or dynamo

Post by dakari-mane »

I've had a crap solar charger before. Not sure I'd go there again.

A dynamo won't stop charging if it gets cloudy.
PrinterJohn
Posts: 110
Joined: 10 Dec 2010, 9:46am
Location: Buckinghamshire
Contact:

Re: Solar charger or dynamo

Post by PrinterJohn »

A dynamo won't charge your equipment either whilst your cooking your evening meal. All I can say is my own system works in the summer in France, if you spend less than around £150 on a solar system it will probably not have the capacity you are going to require. The problem I had with a dynamo system was that it would not charge my old phone as it did not have sufficient output to get the charge cycle started hence going the solar route. The first go at solar which were small plastic boxes with 4 AA batteries inside and a cell on top were useless needing days to charge just 2000mA of cells. Goalzero supply proper solutions IMHO.
simonhill
Posts: 5226
Joined: 13 Jan 2007, 11:28am
Location: Essex

Re: Solar charger or dynamo

Post by simonhill »

Not to detract from the dabate, but......

It is worth taking a car charger with you. They are cheap, small and light. If nothing else available you can often ask nearby car campers if you can charge. Especially if it is a GPS. Also a lot safer than leaving it in the loo.
phil parker
Posts: 1033
Joined: 31 Dec 2009, 5:09pm
Location: Hants/Wilts

Re: Solar charger or dynamo

Post by phil parker »

I use my Dynamo hub to charge a power pack of either 3MAh or 5 MAh and then in the evening the power pack will easily charge both my phone and my Garmin. Quite often when I visit the pub they are always accommodating to charge any items and I will give the battery pack a boost as wel as other items from my 4-USB plug.

I've been disappointed with Solar chargers, but as Printer John correctly points out, you need to buy a quality charger (especially at £150+) even though the technology has improved and the cost has gone down over the last 3 years.
tim_f
Posts: 251
Joined: 12 Oct 2009, 10:37pm

Re: Solar charger or dynamo

Post by tim_f »

I normally use dynamo charging a small external battery pack via a axxa light with usb socket.

but this summer for a two week camping trip to France I was on bike without dynamo so just took 2 small external battery packs and small mains usb charger with 4 outputs and interchangable mains plug. charged the packs overnight in toilet blocks or sometimes at hookup points on pitch if had right sort of socket.

http://www.portablepowersupplies.co.uk/ supplied packs (though they are not selling at momment small ones about 4600 mvah I have)and charger. 2 small packs better than one big one as one can be charging in toilet block whilst other is charging gadgets in tent. plus if one goes missing still have other.

if i did not make a habit of leaving before reception opened in morning I could have left packs charging with reception.

there was a couple of times where no where to recharge on campsite by packs had capacity to cover more than one days power.

I would use same solution in France again.
brianleach
Posts: 633
Joined: 14 Jul 2007, 2:10pm
Location: Winchester, Hants

Re: Solar charger or dynamo

Post by brianleach »

As has been said I've found the small solar chargers useless and I have tried a few. I now have a dynamo hub which charges a battery as I go along and that charges the phone in the evening. I could charge the phone but don't have anywhere it can be charged safely whilst travelling. I also carry a number of other small devices which need to be charged periodically so the battery is a good option.

However I always take one of these.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Powertraveller- ... mp+charger

Not cheap or very environmentally friendly but it is light and you can get AA batteries easily. I do bring back the spent batteries and recycle them.
Colgrenfell
Posts: 27
Joined: 13 Aug 2015, 11:17pm

Re: Solar charger or dynamo

Post by Colgrenfell »

Each to their own - we used a Portapow 15w 2A solar charger (circa £30) on a recent 2 week tour in France. This charged/topped up an EC Powerbank (3.7V/22500mAh/82.8Wh (circa £15))
Didn't need to go near mains power for the whole trip - charging a couple of iPhones. Also was great for days on the beach! The variable voltage cycling through shade etc, caused iPhones (and presumably Android types as well) to disconnect and subsequently ignore the charger until they were physically disconnected and then reconnected; so a battery which allows trickle charging was necessary. This does reduce efficiency, but not so much that we noticed. A few hours a day on the back of my rack seemed enough to charge the battery.

IMG_3556 (1).jpg
IMG_3556 (1).jpg (16.58 KiB) Viewed 3710 times
PrinterJohn
Posts: 110
Joined: 10 Dec 2010, 9:46am
Location: Buckinghamshire
Contact:

Re: Solar charger or dynamo

Post by PrinterJohn »

Sounds like a better solution than my Goalzero setup and at a fraction of the price. The secret as you point out with solar is to have a high capacity battery pack which is trickle charged all day long rather than just when your pedaling.
Bigdummysteve
Posts: 353
Joined: 24 May 2015, 9:29am
Location: Oxfordshire

Re: Solar charger or dynamo

Post by Bigdummysteve »

Colgrenfell wrote:Each to their own - we used a Portapow 15w 2A solar charger (circa £30) on a recent 2 week tour in France. This charged/topped up an EC Powerbank (3.7V/22500mAh/82.8Wh (circa £15))
Didn't need to go near mains power for the whole trip - charging a couple of iPhones. Also was great for days on the beach! The variable voltage cycling through shade etc, caused iPhones (and presumably Android types as well) to disconnect and subsequently ignore the charger until they were physically disconnected and then reconnected; so a battery which allows trickle charging was necessary. This does reduce efficiency, but not so much that we noticed. A few hours a day on the back of my rack seemed enough to charge the battery.

IMG_3556 (1).jpg


I used the same panel coupled with a portapow 10000mAh battery, one thing I found is that some power packs don't like trickle charging, when the sun is low the battery would discharge into the panel!!. I coupled this with a dynamo charger as well as I had my iPhone running all day for route logging/ navigation and charged my flashing lights,camera and ecigs
One problem I found with the Dynamo set up was during extended climbing I was often going too slow to charge anything off the hub. The ideal setup would be both with perhaps a y cable feeding into one battery, that way you would always have power and hopefully a fully charged battery at the end of the day

The portapow panel has good output, in bright sun it will even charge an iPad directly.
Post Reply