Thanks dude! A video request please..... I would like to understand more about batteries, solar panels and putting them together to build my own but I just don't know where to start. What do I need to learn and understand what you know and understand? I hear you when you talk and I do kinda understand but I think for me (as a beginner) I need it broken down like a 'book for dummy's' so to speak. You would be a great teacher and I look forward to more videos from you. Thanks ❤
Thanks mate! Bought the components to give this a try. A hikable solar system with reasonable weight vs performance would be a dream come true for many! Would love to see the panels re-dressed in a UL waterproof dyneema (or similar) housing.
Great, enjoy the setup. Indeed, manufacturers could do more for the market of backpackers. I'll try to keep up with developments but I'm busy with other projects at the moment. Cheers!
Finally someone who knows some engineering. Only one recommendation: when you want to test it just put it on the same place, don't do long hiking in witch the conditions will be even more variable.
Fantastic videos! I think world needs more videos on solar and socket charging, batteries and energy management in travel and hiking. I hope you will make them, your explanations are excellent.
Thank you for your kind words :-) I am working on a project which will be the basis for my next video(s) but it will be a different topic. It will contain some solar but not much. But I'll try to stick with the topic in the future. Lots of exciting stuff to explore.
I think this is one of the only videos on YT reviewing the WaveShare solar charge manager as of date! I came across this elegant product after spending hours and considerable amount of money on boards from Ebay which does not have all of these functionalities.
Thank you for the follow up video. Very informative. May I suggest a video about the DIY board you built. Building a custom board will/might? be able to overcome the limitations you noticed about the Solar Power Manager B. Namely, the barrel connector and the need to reroute the power wires. I'd also like to use a larger li-ion battery. Custom-built sounds nice! Again, thanks for your time and effort.
Thanks! I might do something like that in the future. I'll need a decent USB-C PD controller though, at which point, a custom PCB is pretty much a requirement.
Thanks for sharing, I got a small GENASUN Li-On MPPT charger for my windows solar panel setup, it is not cheap for it capacity at $1xx, the one you mentioned is quite affordable should be included in small portable panels.
Another great video. Using an MMPT is a great idea but I do wonder if the weight of this and the DC barrel connectors would make it unsuitable for a through hiker. Have you had any further developments?
I was looking to find a module just like that, would be great to be able to set a charge voltage and a buck boost converter to set output voltage, bonus if it can be paralleled or series connected for increased capacity or output voltage, especially if you can parallel charge them with a smaller voltage and then series them to have a higher output voltage than the input... also if it can work with different sized batteries or even different chemistries
Nice one. I have made an 20w MPPT li ion charger which does get quite hot during max charging current but does get rhe job done very well. I ve also built a 15w QC2 charger to go with it so the 2 make a great little solar charger which is quite powerfull. May make some video at some point just to share
The Ryno Tuff 21w charger i have clearly says right on it 5 volts at 2.1 amps which equals 10 watts according to the math so how they get away with advertising them as 21w I can't understand?
Would a small heat sink on the buck converter parts help dissipate the heat more safely? And I wonder if a 3-d printed case could help bring down the weight for backpacking... Thx!
Hi mr Toledo please clarify something for me- both anker and solar circuit board have to be on "6" ONLY and everything else off, correct? Also, the outlet ports on anker will no longer work? Thank you so much.
The max charging of the power manager is 2amps, it cannot go above 9.5w even if you have a 100w solar panel. Can anyone suggest another mppt powerbank with atleast 15w solar charging.
It seems the consensus among long haul thru hikers is that 10 AH is the best size of storage to have along.... just enough power to get to the next town (every 4 days or so) for a recharge. Another viewpoint might be the Air traveler. the Airlines allow any lithium battery under 100 watts to be OK for carry-on air transport. In that case, a power bank of 27 AH would be the max allowable by the TSA in the USA Waveshare should consider a "model B+" with the 27 AH battery and a plastic case to minimize weight. They also might consider changing the Model B over to a plastic case too for weight savings. .
Another follow up question. You use the Anker solar panel, and mention that it outputs 6 volts. What about the BigBlue solar panel? Does it output 6 volts? Looking at the pictures of it, there are 12 segments in each panel. I would presume 0.5v per segment, meaning 6 volts. What do you think? Thanks for your thoughts and ideas.
Many thanks for your informative video! I was at the edge of buying the Waveshare Solar Power Manager C with the 3x 18650 cells. But I'm not sure. At which Ampere rate can the Solar Power Manager charge the cells? If you got a 40W solar panel or a 30W one and the sun is good i fear you lose energy instead of saving it. I don't think, 3x cells can be charged at 30Watts? What is the rated charge current of the device? Perhaps it's only good for very smalls solar panels?
Can you connect Anker's USB output to this device's solar input instead (without the need to rewire the Anker)? Or perhaps connecting Anker's USB output to the Type-C port on this device?
The USB ports will put out 5V, whereas the PowerManager requires 6V at the solar input to work correctly. You can try charging the PowerManager via the USB-C port. My Samsung powerbank has proven itself insuitable for that; I've never tried it with the PowerManager B.
I'm confused... Isn't this simply just a standard powerbank? What stops me from using any arbitrary powerbank, charging my phone while the powerbank is being charged by the solarpanels? I'm obviously losing efficiency twice through voltage regulation, but at least the battery is being continuously charged, right? My experience, like your own, is that a smartphone will lose communication with the solar panel when the unstable current drops below a certain level, and sometimes does not pick back up on the communcation for quite some time, missing out on a significant amount of power. Waveshare's SPMB looks unnecessarily large and clunky for doing something as simple as buffering the power output of a solar panel. I have an old LiPo solar charger circuit from Adafruit, which is essentially identical to Waveshare's original SPM (5V/1A), but is a fraction of its weight and size, and stores its main buffers in a large capacitor. It shouldn't be very hard to add a controller circuit that upregulates any high currents @ nominal voltage to its preferred charging standard without adding 100ml of metal bulk. Remember, a low power solar panel such as the Anker is a very simple device. It's unfeasible to expect it to charge anything but a single device at a time. So we really want only a single port, ideally just Power Delivery, to extract power out of the solar panel. It seems to me that the losses in having no buffer controller is so great that even the losses in battery regulation are preferable, if a medium such as a battery is needed to charge non-PD-compatible devices. Edit: It certainly seems to me that an external battery makes the LiPo in the solar charger circuit redundant. Not to mention the power dissipation from the buck converter required for its regulation. This all but defeats the purpose of having a buffer in my opinion. A single chunky capacitor seems to me to reduce the load on the buck converter, while simultaneously providing steady power to an arbitrary external powerbank or other device.
same toughts and questions here...I'm using a Anker Powerbank to capture the solar energy, assuming it can handle the pending incoming energy-leveles. When beeing back in the night I can recharge my devices easisly with that fully loaded powerbank.
Yes it should work just fine. I don't have a 15W Anker panel, but my guess is that it's identical to the 21W except for the number of panels. It will also save you some weight.
Als Laie fehlt mir so einiges an Detailwissen, weshalb ich auf eine ganz knappe Antwort hoffe: Warum bietet eine gewöhnliche Powerbank als Puffer zwischen Solarpanel und Smartphone denn keine vergleichbare Wirkung?
For someone who can't figure out electrical maths properly... What does this equate to in peak amps @ 5V? Are you getting more than the 2.4A @ 5V that would come via USB (in theory), or are you simply bypassing limitations in the USB output that may prevent you getting the full 2.4A even if the light levels would otherwise provide it? My basic understanding suggests you averaged 0.624A @ 5V on the second trip (0.624A * 5 = 3.12W)?
Hi. So, I'll try to clarify this. 2.4Amps is the maximum current at which the lithium-ion battery can be charged. The voltage of the battery is somewhere between 2.8V and 4.2V; it's not the 5V output. If the battery is sufficiently charged, the USB output can deliver full power, regardless of the present light levels. I hope this answers your question - if not, please let me know. Sorry for the confusion.
@@toledomerendo Hey, I mean the rate at which you were able to charge the SPMB's li-ion from the solar panel - you say you were capturing at a rate of 3.12Wh/h. What would be the equivalent in amps @ 5v to capture the same amount of power? I ask because I'm testing a few different models at the moment, and it seems they will all put out most of the max 2.4A @5V per USB terminal under the right conditions, but varies a lot by device connected, and trying to understand where the main benefit of a solar power manager like this would be. Basically what I've seen is with a 4-panel foldable solar pack, i can get ~1.5A per port even in winter, so presumably closer to 2.4A in summer (the 3 panel Anker would max out before this I think), and at least with my power-banks (also Anker), they instantly recover current after a drop out from shade/clouds (unlike phones, which might stick @ 0.2A, or only ever get to 1A). So I just wonder if connecting the right powerbank(s) to the right size panel via USB would give similar results to connecting up the SPM like this - you obviously did the tests before, I just can't figure out the conversion from Wh to Ah, but you suggested you were only pulling 2.5W (0.5A @ 5v?) which is way lower than you should've got and might indicate an issue with the powerbank or panel you had. Or I just totally don't understand properly 😛. I'm also guessing there's a point at which the current drops so low the powerbanks won't do anything, whilst the SPMB would keep pushing that to the connected li-ion, which would account for better performance, but you seem to get the best performance boost in the most sun so that doesn't make sense :|
So, the equivalent current for 3.12Wh/h at 5V would be about 0.6A. That's just an average, of course. The main point is, that sufficient energy can realistically be captured during a day of backpacking to keep one or two smartphones charged. But that's the charge rate which ends up in the li-ion cell. The foldable solar panels will certainly put out ample power, as long as they stay in direct sunlight. But that's not feasible when backpacking. Some phones may recover from a sudden drop in power output, others may just stay at a minimum charge power. Of course, if you have a power bank which also recovers quickly, you could use that. The advantage of the Solar Power Manager is, that it will always try to match the power output of the solar panels point per point, with any level of insulation. The point about charging the phone at 2.5W is due to the absence of power negotiation. Not all phones will draw so little power, some will "probe" the capabilities of the charger by ramping up the current and checking for drops in voltage. In any case, it's not the main issue, because usually, you'd charge a phone overnight anyways, so a charge time of several hours is not an issue.
@@toledomerendo Hi thanks for these videos, I bought a similar solar panel solution but with 36W output. The electronics were junk so I decided to start building my own setup. But then I run into this issue that there isn’t any real good hw that deals with fluctuating power and usb power delivery. What would you say is this device in video something that could take full advantage of 36 W panel?
I'm thinking that we can achieve the same result by using a portable battery charger (so we don't lose the leftovers energy). After that we can use the portable battery for charge our devices. Do you think the results are the same as yours? (I wrote the same answer in your first video, maybe this video is newer and easly to achive) Thx
What exactly do you mean by portable battery charger? A power bank? If so, it depends on the power bank, some perform better than others. Please let me know if this answers your question or not :-)
Wouldn't it be better to pre-charge a power bank from something like a 28W stationary USB portable solar panel left on a window sill or garden etc and take the high speed charging capability with you, perhaps? I have a few power banks full to take a few USB things off grid and run some interior LED string lights as well. But I don't hike, so I'm possibly missing the point, but I get the MPPT issue nonetheless. Great work.
Yes that's an option if you can leave a solar charger stationary in the sun for a few hours. Like you said, my setup is intended for hiking trips. Depending on how much hiking there is each day, there may still be sufficient sunlight left at the end of a hiking day to charge up a power bank. But you'd have to carry the whole stuff with you anyway, so no weight savings there...
John, one or two day hikes - I would agree with you. Why haul all that stuff around? But, on long multi-month hikes, with 5-7 days between towns, having a way to recharge one's electronics would be worth the weight. In addition, not having to sit and wait for one's electronics to recharge, but instead, get one's resupply, and go, would be an advantage.
I think 12W is still not enough. It needs to be 18W. In addition, you need to be able to adjust the MPPT, since this point can shift depending on the strength of the light falling on the solar panel. Further, the video did not tell whether this power bank can simultaneously charge itself and charge some gadget; while performing the function of a power stabilizer. This is a very important feature for a power bank that must be paired with a solar panel. Further, in my opinion, it is better to have not a power bank, but a charger for 3 18650 batteries with a power bank function. It is highly desirable that the batteries are charged not in parallel, but through independent channels, so that batteries with different levels of residual charge can be installed simultaneously. And finally, I want to note that for a power bank or charger that are designed to work in tandem with a solar panel, it would be desirable to have a sound notification function about the end of the charge; this feature should be disabled. Well, this power bank should also be able to be charged not only from the solar panel, but also from the usual mains charging, so that it can be charged from the outlet in inclement weather, if there is such an opportunity.
@@gharbadtheweak3878 , I did not find such a power bank for sale. I had to make it myself. It works almost the same as I described above. The only difference is that in it the batteries are charged in parallel, and not through independent channels. Maybe someday in the future I will be able to make independent channels in it, but now I can’t do it.
Thanks dude! A video request please..... I would like to understand more about batteries, solar panels and putting them together to build my own but I just don't know where to start. What do I need to learn and understand what you know and understand? I hear you when you talk and I do kinda understand but I think for me (as a beginner) I need it broken down like a 'book for dummy's' so to speak. You would be a great teacher and I look forward to more videos from you. Thanks ❤
Thanks mate! Bought the components to give this a try. A hikable solar system with reasonable weight vs performance would be a dream come true for many! Would love to see the panels re-dressed in a UL waterproof dyneema (or similar) housing.
Great, enjoy the setup. Indeed, manufacturers could do more for the market of backpackers. I'll try to keep up with developments but I'm busy with other projects at the moment. Cheers!
"unrelated to ice age"
:) nice little detail, I got that! Buck is my favorite character from Ice Age.
Your presentation is extremely serious, I like this, it adds to your credibility. Thank you.
Finally someone who knows some engineering. Only one recommendation: when you want to test it just put it on the same place, don't do long hiking in witch the conditions will be even more variable.
Fantastic videos! I think world needs more videos on solar and socket charging, batteries and energy management in travel and hiking. I hope you will make them, your explanations are excellent.
Thank you for your kind words :-) I am working on a project which will be the basis for my next video(s) but it will be a different topic. It will contain some solar but not much. But I'll try to stick with the topic in the future. Lots of exciting stuff to explore.
I think this is one of the only videos on YT reviewing the WaveShare solar charge manager as of date! I came across this elegant product after spending hours and considerable amount of money on boards from Ebay which does not have all of these functionalities.
Thanks for the updated version ! This is exactly what I was looking for !
Glad I was able to help :)
Please make more of these videos. Great job
Great video - I think you'd be great at doing nifty project videos like this, I like the way you present. Have a great day!
Thank you, I appreciate that :) I've got the next project in the making so stay tuned.
Thank you for the follow up video. Very informative. May I suggest a video about the DIY board you built. Building a custom board will/might? be able to overcome the limitations you noticed about the Solar Power Manager B. Namely, the barrel connector and the need to reroute the power wires. I'd also like to use a larger li-ion battery. Custom-built sounds nice! Again, thanks for your time and effort.
Thanks! I might do something like that in the future. I'll need a decent USB-C PD controller though, at which point, a custom PCB is pretty much a requirement.
Thanks for sharing, I got a small GENASUN Li-On MPPT charger for my windows solar panel setup, it is not cheap for it capacity at $1xx, the one you mentioned is quite affordable should be included in small portable panels.
Another great video. Using an MMPT is a great idea but I do wonder if the weight of this and the DC barrel connectors would make it unsuitable for a through hiker. Have you had any further developments?
This is great! Fantastic content!
Thank you, I appreciate that
Awesome content!
how would this compare to attaching the widely popular cn3791 mppt charger? Amy data? thanks, very insightful
I was looking to find a module just like that, would be great to be able to set a charge voltage and a buck boost converter to set output voltage, bonus if it can be paralleled or series connected for increased capacity or output voltage, especially if you can parallel charge them with a smaller voltage and then series them to have a higher output voltage than the input... also if it can work with different sized batteries or even different chemistries
Nice one. I have made an 20w MPPT li ion charger which does get quite hot during max charging current but does get rhe job done very well. I ve also built a 15w QC2 charger to go with it so the 2 make a great little solar charger which is quite powerfull. May make some video at some point just to share
The Ryno Tuff 21w charger i have clearly says right on it
5 volts at 2.1 amps which equals 10 watts according to the math so how they get away with advertising them as 21w I can't understand?
Nice video man 👍
Thanks 👌
Great video!!! Thanks
Would a small heat sink on the buck converter parts help dissipate the heat more safely? And I wonder if a 3-d printed case could help bring down the weight for backpacking... Thx!
Would the newer one Solar Power Manager (C) work as well?
Hi mr Toledo please clarify something for me- both anker and solar circuit board have to be on "6" ONLY and everything else off, correct? Also, the outlet ports on anker will no longer work? Thank you so much.
Thank you for your great video. Why not use a usb-c input power bank instead and mod a usb-c cable to hook up to the solar panel.
Is solar input a DC5521?
The max charging of the power manager is 2amps, it cannot go above 9.5w even if you have a 100w solar panel. Can anyone suggest another mppt powerbank with atleast 15w solar charging.
I liked your videos, why are you not filming anymore?
It seems the consensus among long haul thru hikers is that 10 AH is the best size of storage to have along.... just enough power to get to the next town (every 4 days or so) for a recharge.
Another viewpoint might be the Air traveler. the Airlines allow any lithium battery under 100 watts to be OK for carry-on air transport. In that case, a power bank of 27 AH would be the max allowable by the TSA in the USA
Waveshare should consider a "model B+" with the 27 AH battery and a plastic case to minimize weight. They also might consider changing the Model B over to a plastic case too for weight savings. .
Another follow up question. You use the Anker solar panel, and mention that it outputs 6 volts. What about the BigBlue solar panel? Does it output 6 volts? Looking at the pictures of it, there are 12 segments in each panel. I would presume 0.5v per segment, meaning 6 volts. What do you think? Thanks for your thoughts and ideas.
Many thanks for your informative video!
I was at the edge of buying the Waveshare Solar Power Manager C with the 3x 18650 cells.
But I'm not sure.
At which Ampere rate can the Solar Power Manager charge the cells? If you got a 40W solar panel or a 30W one and the sun is good i fear you lose energy instead of saving it. I don't think, 3x cells can be charged at 30Watts?
What is the rated charge current of the device?
Perhaps it's only good for very smalls solar panels?
Can you connect Anker's USB output to this device's solar input instead (without the need to rewire the Anker)?
Or perhaps connecting Anker's USB output to the Type-C port on this device?
The USB ports will put out 5V, whereas the PowerManager requires 6V at the solar input to work correctly. You can try charging the PowerManager via the USB-C port. My Samsung powerbank has proven itself insuitable for that; I've never tried it with the PowerManager B.
what a geat video!
Thank you :-)
I'm confused... Isn't this simply just a standard powerbank? What stops me from using any arbitrary powerbank, charging my phone while the powerbank is being charged by the solarpanels? I'm obviously losing efficiency twice through voltage regulation, but at least the battery is being continuously charged, right?
My experience, like your own, is that a smartphone will lose communication with the solar panel when the unstable current drops below a certain level, and sometimes does not pick back up on the communcation for quite some time, missing out on a significant amount of power.
Waveshare's SPMB looks unnecessarily large and clunky for doing something as simple as buffering the power output of a solar panel. I have an old LiPo solar charger circuit from Adafruit, which is essentially identical to Waveshare's original SPM (5V/1A), but is a fraction of its weight and size, and stores its main buffers in a large capacitor. It shouldn't be very hard to add a controller circuit that upregulates any high currents @ nominal voltage to its preferred charging standard without adding 100ml of metal bulk. Remember, a low power solar panel such as the Anker is a very simple device. It's unfeasible to expect it to charge anything but a single device at a time. So we really want only a single port, ideally just Power Delivery, to extract power out of the solar panel. It seems to me that the losses in having no buffer controller is so great that even the losses in battery regulation are preferable, if a medium such as a battery is needed to charge non-PD-compatible devices.
Edit: It certainly seems to me that an external battery makes the LiPo in the solar charger circuit redundant. Not to mention the power dissipation from the buck converter required for its regulation. This all but defeats the purpose of having a buffer in my opinion. A single chunky capacitor seems to me to reduce the load on the buck converter, while simultaneously providing steady power to an arbitrary external powerbank or other device.
same toughts and questions here...I'm using a Anker Powerbank to capture the solar energy, assuming it can handle the pending incoming energy-leveles. When beeing back in the night I can recharge my devices easisly with that fully loaded powerbank.
What aren't there any out of the box product like this... quite strange
Will this work with a 15 watt anker
Yes it should work just fine. I don't have a 15W Anker panel, but my guess is that it's identical to the 21W except for the number of panels. It will also save you some weight.
Als Laie fehlt mir so einiges an Detailwissen, weshalb ich auf eine ganz knappe Antwort hoffe:
Warum bietet eine gewöhnliche Powerbank als Puffer zwischen Solarpanel und Smartphone denn keine vergleichbare Wirkung?
weil die kein MPPT kann. Ausserdem ist die lösung günstiges Modul + Powermanager B/C Günstiger als ein portables panel und ne Powerbank.
For someone who can't figure out electrical maths properly... What does this equate to in peak amps @ 5V? Are you getting more than the 2.4A @ 5V that would come via USB (in theory), or are you simply bypassing limitations in the USB output that may prevent you getting the full 2.4A even if the light levels would otherwise provide it? My basic understanding suggests you averaged 0.624A @ 5V on the second trip (0.624A * 5 = 3.12W)?
Hi. So, I'll try to clarify this. 2.4Amps is the maximum current at which the lithium-ion battery can be charged. The voltage of the battery is somewhere between 2.8V and 4.2V; it's not the 5V output. If the battery is sufficiently charged, the USB output can deliver full power, regardless of the present light levels. I hope this answers your question - if not, please let me know. Sorry for the confusion.
@@toledomerendo Hey, I mean the rate at which you were able to charge the SPMB's li-ion from the solar panel - you say you were capturing at a rate of 3.12Wh/h. What would be the equivalent in amps @ 5v to capture the same amount of power? I ask because I'm testing a few different models at the moment, and it seems they will all put out most of the max 2.4A @5V per USB terminal under the right conditions, but varies a lot by device connected, and trying to understand where the main benefit of a solar power manager like this would be.
Basically what I've seen is with a 4-panel foldable solar pack, i can get ~1.5A per port even in winter, so presumably closer to 2.4A in summer (the 3 panel Anker would max out before this I think), and at least with my power-banks (also Anker), they instantly recover current after a drop out from shade/clouds (unlike phones, which might stick @ 0.2A, or only ever get to 1A). So I just wonder if connecting the right powerbank(s) to the right size panel via USB would give similar results to connecting up the SPM like this - you obviously did the tests before, I just can't figure out the conversion from Wh to Ah, but you suggested you were only pulling 2.5W (0.5A @ 5v?) which is way lower than you should've got and might indicate an issue with the powerbank or panel you had. Or I just totally don't understand properly 😛.
I'm also guessing there's a point at which the current drops so low the powerbanks won't do anything, whilst the SPMB would keep pushing that to the connected li-ion, which would account for better performance, but you seem to get the best performance boost in the most sun so that doesn't make sense :|
So, the equivalent current for 3.12Wh/h at 5V would be about 0.6A. That's just an average, of course. The main point is, that sufficient energy can realistically be captured during a day of backpacking to keep one or two smartphones charged. But that's the charge rate which ends up in the li-ion cell.
The foldable solar panels will certainly put out ample power, as long as they stay in direct sunlight. But that's not feasible when backpacking. Some phones may recover from a sudden drop in power output, others may just stay at a minimum charge power. Of course, if you have a power bank which also recovers quickly, you could use that. The advantage of the Solar Power Manager is, that it will always try to match the power output of the solar panels point per point, with any level of insulation.
The point about charging the phone at 2.5W is due to the absence of power negotiation. Not all phones will draw so little power, some will "probe" the capabilities of the charger by ramping up the current and checking for drops in voltage. In any case, it's not the main issue, because usually, you'd charge a phone overnight anyways, so a charge time of several hours is not an issue.
@@toledomerendo Hi thanks for these videos, I bought a similar solar panel solution but with 36W output. The electronics were junk so I decided to start building my own setup. But then I run into this issue that there isn’t any real good hw that deals with fluctuating power and usb power delivery. What would you say is this device in video something that could take full advantage of 36 W panel?
I'm thinking that we can achieve the same result by using a portable battery charger (so we don't lose the leftovers energy). After that we can use the portable battery for charge our devices.
Do you think the results are the same as yours?
(I wrote the same answer in your first video, maybe this video is newer and easly to achive)
Thx
What exactly do you mean by portable battery charger? A power bank? If so, it depends on the power bank, some perform better than others. Please let me know if this answers your question or not :-)
Wouldn't it be better to pre-charge a power bank from something like a 28W stationary USB portable solar panel left on a window sill or garden etc and take the high speed charging capability with you, perhaps? I have a few power banks full to take a few USB things off grid and run some interior LED string lights as well. But I don't hike, so I'm possibly missing the point, but I get the MPPT issue nonetheless. Great work.
Yes that's an option if you can leave a solar charger stationary in the sun for a few hours. Like you said, my setup is intended for hiking trips. Depending on how much hiking there is each day, there may still be sufficient sunlight left at the end of a hiking day to charge up a power bank. But you'd have to carry the whole stuff with you anyway, so no weight savings there...
John, one or two day hikes - I would agree with you. Why haul all that stuff around? But, on long multi-month hikes, with 5-7 days between towns, having a way to recharge one's electronics would be worth the weight. In addition, not having to sit and wait for one's electronics to recharge, but instead, get one's resupply, and go, would be an advantage.
@@toledomerendo I get that. From the UK, so that's not something I factored.
I think 12W is still not enough. It needs to be 18W. In addition, you need to be able to adjust the MPPT, since this point can shift depending on the strength of the light falling on the solar panel. Further, the video did not tell whether this power bank can simultaneously charge itself and charge some gadget; while performing the function of a power stabilizer. This is a very important feature for a power bank that must be paired with a solar panel. Further, in my opinion, it is better to have not a power bank, but a charger for 3 18650 batteries with a power bank function. It is highly desirable that the batteries are charged not in parallel, but through independent channels, so that batteries with different levels of residual charge can be installed simultaneously. And finally, I want to note that for a power bank or charger that are designed to work in tandem with a solar panel, it would be desirable to have a sound notification function about the end of the charge; this feature should be disabled. Well, this power bank should also be able to be charged not only from the solar panel, but also from the usual mains charging, so that it can be charged from the outlet in inclement weather, if there is such an opportunity.
@@gharbadtheweak3878 , I did not find such a power bank for sale. I had to make it myself. It works almost the same as I described above. The only difference is that in it the batteries are charged in parallel, and not through independent channels. Maybe someday in the future I will be able to make independent channels in it, but now I can’t do it.