Heading to the land of the Great Walleye and supercilious French for a week without phones, e-mails, faxes, whining clients, ignorant adjusters, and litigation churning defense attorneys.

The current equipment is an Ipod nano thru AA powered Altec Lansing portable speakers.

That being said, I am currently looking for a solar battery charger. the options I have found:


Solio Universal Hybrid Solar Charger http://www.rei.com/product/751233

Pro: Can be charged by AC at home, and then solar charged in the field. Will charge Ipods, cell phones, PDA's depending on purchase of additional adapters. Con: Will not charge batteries, only individual appliances. Requires purchase of additional adapters.

Brunton SolarPort 4.4 with Battery Charger http://www.rei.com/product/709065

Pro: I believe this will charge an Ipod nano and batteries. Con: larger, 2 piece unit, cannot carry a charge like the Solio.

Please keep in mind that I am technologically retarded. Seriously, anything electrical that's more sophisticated than a flashlight turns me into a slack-jawed mouth-breather.

Any experiences? Other recommendations?

Thanks,

M

Edited to remove objectionable political content.

Thanks

Better?

M

Thanks.

Hiker,

Is that solar or methane power provided by the squirrel? My eyes aren't what they used to be.

M

I went with 4- 5 watt panels awhile back and love them, I had originally got them at Northern tools for a decent price but now they stopped carrying them. As for a quick solution the Brunton may be a option but it will take a while to fully charge. The more watts the better and foldable allows for storage.



Other options:
http://store.altenergystore.com/Solar-El...e-Charger/p809/
http://store.altenergystore.com/Backup-P...ower-Pack/p573/
http://www.cetsolar.com/solarbatchargers.htm

Link to the forum on my set up.
http://forums.equipped.org/ubbthreads.ph...=true#Post89817

Even though I am one of those litigation churning defense attorneys (we don’t do it for the money, just for the sheer joy of aggravating plaintiff’s attorneys), I will chip in my 2 cents worth. Look at the marine supply stores. They usually have a wide variety of solar chargers that sail boaters use. Here is one example:

http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs/sto...roductId=244951

Hi Misanthrope,

I would go with the Brunton Solaris 6 Foldable Solar Array at

http://www.rei.com/product/744034

It is more powerful, lighter to carry, more compact and more weatherproof.


Combine this with a Universal AAA and AA charger, which has a 12 V car cigarette power adapter. Use Eneloop NiMh cells. Have one set of batteries for your equipment while another set can be on the charger. Additional 12v car adapters will, should be available for PDAs, Ipods, MP3 players, portable TVs, cellular phones, media players, digital cameras, GPS etc which may have their own internal cell.
A 12v Universal car type power adapter which switch modes to lower voltages such as 9v, 6v, 5.0v, 4.5v, 3v etc can also be purchased. But you have to be careful to get the voltage and polarity of the connector tip correct though.

With this solar array you could even recharge a car vehicle battery (would take a long time though) or keep it topped up in an emergency. It may be enough to get the vehicle going if the car battery is flat.

Thanks all..

Here's the rub. I've found solar chargers that will recharge an Ipod (or cell phone, or PDA's) internal battery. And I 've found solar chargers that will recharge AA and/or AAA batts. I'm trying to locate a portable solar charger that will do both, without a great deal of rewiring or tech skills.

M

get a solar to 12v automotive style then get a car charger for the ipod and an AA/AAA charger which will run from a vehicle connection.