Solar Battery chargers ?

can anyone recommend a solar battery charger for nimh aa ?

and does anyone know of a solar charger for lo-ion rcr123/18650 cells ?

Solio charger is what you may be looking for. If your AA and 123 charges are 12V car lighter compatible you maybe be able to get a cable that replicates car lighter port.

I know that Solio Classic had that cable available for extra $20 bucks so the package with charger was about $120.

Solio Classic:
https://www.solio.com/charger/explore-solio/what-is-solio.html

Adapter 12V:
http://www.penncamera.com/store/item.asp?ITEM_ID=7302&DEPARTMENT_ID=482


That system works. Also there are unlimited number of tips for other electronic devices that you can use with this combo. And since charger has internal battery you can store the power for later use.

Look here, they have lots of solar items including chargers.


http://www.safetycentral.com/

Hi Jackal,

I'm not aware of a solar charger than can charge RCR123 (3.0 or 3.7V protected ?) and 18650 cells although the Ultrafire Rapid Charger will charge the RCR123 3.7V protected cells (requires aluminium spacers) and 18650. It will also charge 14500, 17500, 18500 and 17670 cells. It will accept main voltage of 100-240V and a 12V input (Car cigarette lighter) input.

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.1251 (no aluminium spacers supplied required for charging RCR123 3.7 cells)

https://www.fenix-store.com/product_info.php?cPath=53_57&products_id=207 (supplied with spacers)

https://www.fenix-store.com/product_info.php?cPath=53_57&products_id=209 12 Volt cable

Solar panel would be a 6.5W Sunlinq (has a wide range of connectivity options and is lightweight and reasonably weather proof).

http://www.skylinesolar.co.uk/shop/product_info.php/cPath/36_38/products_id/253

i use trustfire protected rcr123 and 18650 cells. i preffer the 18650 cells.

my primary carry light is an ultrafire wf-501b (not the one from dxextreme as they only take cr123/rcr123 cells).

i get the cheap xenon bulb version off ebay and swap the dropin module for a P60 Q5 module also from ebay. with the 18650 cell the light is direct driven and gives outstanding run time of over 6 hours.

dx now stock P60 3 mode 0-100% Q5 modules and i have ordered one to see what they are like.

ultrafire flashlight
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=320211416095&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=011

Q5 module
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Ultrafire-CREE-Q5-...1713.m153.l1262

Trustfire 18650
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.5790

for those of you that have never used a Lithium Battery and are thinking of doing so please be careful and do your homework before you get them. they work well but you have to respect them

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=106242

never ever use unprotected cells

My thinking on solar charges: if it sits in the sun then it gets hot, batteries don't need the heat, so maybe a panel that sets in the sun and a separate charger that connects but can sit in the shade. Many of the small chargers I looked into have such low voltage it would take days to charge batteries. C. Crane Company lists a charge for D to AAA that claims 150mAh and 5 volts, an old Brunton model I have only does 140 at the 6v setting, it could trickle charge a cell phone just didn't do much for batteries

A search of Folding Solar panels should give some choices, many with chargers for AA and AAA built in. Since I wanted a panel for a lot of reasons I chose a large rollable panel that should pack enough power to rapid charge batteries. I'm still trying to decide on the charger but I have been looking at these chargers
or these chargers
I'm looking for a rapid charger "smart" enough not to fry the batteries

Well the first one says charges 2 or 4 batteries at a time so its not a good charger already.

Your best bet is to buy a decent charger (MAHA or Lacross) with a 12v input then hook it up to a solar panel. Most of the solar chargers on the market are designed to be small backpackable chargers so they compromise size for speed and quality of charging.

You want to be careful of rapid charging anyway, the more rapid the charge the less the lifetime of the batteries. Charge them slow to keep them lasting a long time.

Depends on your game plan for recharging batteries, IMHO the best route is with a fold able solar recharger with 20W or greater will give you allot options when on the move. I have upgraded my 20W solar cells with a 40W military one off of e-bay recently and have increased my electronics options. Solar cells let the sun do the work for you on sunny days of course and lets you spend more time doing other things. I have found allot of things the cells can do and the list keeps growing.
The cells can give you:
1. Fire
2. Navigation
3. Communication for emergency's or what have you
4. Water purification
5. Shelter in a stretch (The cell I have can act like a blanket or tarp and is waterproof)
6. Recharging batteries
7. Fans for cooling
8. Music,weather and TV if needed
9. Light
10. The list goes on and on

Anyway here's a 12v CR123 chargers that I use to recharge my steripen batteries. E-bay has some good deals on solar cells but these are fold able and add weight. If you are going ultra light then Polak187's solo would be more in that area. It all depends on what your game plan is. Mine has been built around long term use.

http://www.all-battery.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=34

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZvitabon

http://search.ebay.com/foldable-solar_W0QQ_trksidZm37QQfromZR40

the primary use would be for while camping but i also want one suitable for longterm use as well. i have a landrover 109 rigged as my get out of dodge ride so folding panels would be good for that but something that will go in my bob/backpacks would be useful to. i use british army bergens for my bobs and backpacking as they are what i am use to.

Like any product there will always be tredeoffs. A solar charger small enough to backpack/camping will not be a very good charger for long term and a good long term charger will be too big for camping/backpacking.

I've standardized on the new low self discharge NiMH batteries and carry two sets for each electronic device I have and then a few spares. With theose I can run 2-3 days without needing to re-charge anything and I can carry a lot of spare batteries in the space a solar charger would take up. So my plan is for bugging out on foot I'll run off the batteries I carry and my small good quality charger is for when I arrive at my bug out destination and I carry its 12v and 120v cords. So any camping trips I just make sure all my batteries are charged brfore leaving. My GPS can run 12 hours on a set and I have the dedicated spare for it, our digicam 500 pictures on a charged set, etc. So most gear can go plenty without needing a re-charge.

When I add on a solar panel it will be in my longer term gear and not my short term bob and will integrate with the rest of my gear, i.e. I plan on a 12v out panel so I can simply use all the existing vehicle adapters for my gear rather than having a dedicated solar battery charger. So my gear system is more modular and flexible. Eventually I plan on a small panel at my bug out location, one on the truck and one at the house and any of those can be taken to the bg out location if needed.

i don't use gps equipment due to it's unrelieable nature. the network requires constant corrections due to the different nature of time on the earths surface and that in orbit. the differance without correction is several hundred Km per day.

call me old fashioned but i use a compass and in the land rover i have a sextant.

falcon5000 pointed out foldable solar panels for which i am very greateful as i had not thought of those. it appears to be the best way to meet my needs and exceed them.

that is unless anyone knows better

His links are much like what I was talking about, separate the panel from the charger so you can get a good charger and have a more modular and flexible system. I'm still learning navigation so the gps is a good way to double check my compass/map work. I also need to get more paper maps and have found that there us some special paper that I can buy and print on and its water proof and foldable so I can print the maps that I have on my gps, thats my long term goal. I'm gathering some of my own data waypoints that I want to be able to print and have on the gps.

I happened to mention GPS due to it being a recent purchase, I also have lights, radios, etc that use the same batteries.

I looked at foldables before getting a rollable marine panel for myself, at about 2 pounds it puts out 20w, 15.4 operating voltage,1.2amps operating current (from the container) and is 1'by 2' and can be rolled into approx. 4" diameter. It's for marine purposes so it's also waterproof (weatherproof,on the box). It fits into my Arctyrex sling bag so its fairly portable, althought not as flat as some foldable types. Runs a gps ,can run a 12v fan/led combo with power to spare and could trickle charge a laptop, probably run a small dvd player, power/charge cell phones etc, and trickle charge a car battery. If the power goes out very handy for myself, and others.

I have a Vector battery pack that can be charged with the panel so if the power goes out long term I shouldn't be without light and ventelation. If your buying panels it would be worth the investment IMHO to go the extra length and get something with similar benefits, unless all you need is a pair of AA.

thanks for the pointer Frostbite do you have a link for the panel.

i like the idea of being able to recharge a laptop, strange as it may seem i regard my laptop as a vital bit of survival gear as i have loaded several thousand ebooks on it on a wide range of subjects. not counting all the scifi/fiction books

this is sort of snowballing now i am thinking of getting afew panels for the roof of my bugout 4x4.

Jackal
rollable panel this is were I bought mine about a year ago, they had the best price then. It was backordered by about 3 months but the manufacturer was increasing production to meet the demand. The staff was helpful, asking if I wanted to keep my name on a waiting list, giving an expected delivery time etc. I was satisfied with the service.

Somewhere on the net I saw a foldable that advertised 60something watts and another site had one at 45 or so, I can't recall where. For military and field use, but I can't see most people needing that much power. Hope this helps.