OMG! - it's sunny in Wales, so testing out some solar kit!
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- Опубліковано 16 вер 2024
- Making the most of a week away in Mid Wales and there's some very sunny weather (I don't really do inactivity!).
As part of plans to go car camping and not needing an electric hook-up on the campsite, I've made an ammo can power bank and also have this rather odd looking solar-charged power bank and a fold-up solar charger. The green solar charger comes with three LED lights which I hope to deploy around a gazebo as part of the camp setup.
As always all kit has come from eBay and bought by myself as cheaply as possible!
Keep on with ideas, very interesting,
Will do - love having a play about with stuff. Cheers.
Great stuff Gary, good to see it powered up the net ok 👍 I’m guessing the small power bank is sealed lead acid, out of interest do you know the battery Ah? And the Wattage of solar panel it came with? I would defo paint the frame black and stealthy mount it inside the roof box for a permanent trickle charge system. As soon as I saw that super dooper sun tracking system I thought of lining the round seat shape with tin foil to reflect any sunlight onto the panel, but then maybe it’ll over heat as it’ll act like a sun oven?! 😂
A small usb volt/current tester device inline with the phone (or indeed the panel) would measure the current, i wouldn’t be without mine as it’s so interesting to know what something is producing/drawing, they only cost a few quid. Curious to know if this set up is better than a dongle like you used to use or even a mobile router?
One last thing, as you experienced the mobile phone will go on off and do it’s nut directly charging from a solar panel, I’d always go with charging a battery and then mobile phone so it’s got a stable power supply. Hope you keep up with the off grid systems, looking forward to the next camp 👍 all the best Gary, sorry for all the questions!
It's a 84Wh LiFePO4 battery with a 18W/5V solar panel - it looked cheap and odd in the listing, but the reviews were pretty good on YT, so went for it (about £60 a year or so ago). I bought it to run lighting in the gazebo and that'll be a good test come the next car camp. Didn't come with a charger, so had to make one up or rely on the sun to charge it. One of those inline USB volt/amp meters would be good 👍
The Samsung phone is on a par with my Huawei MIFI for connectivity stability and speed, but I like using the phone because it serves as a backup phone and I can run apps (I've a FTP server running it for quick local file sharing between devices (not visible to the Internet) and I've been fiddling around with a few DLNA apps in the hope of some media sharing too).
The dongles I've got are all just 3G, apart from one, which is incompatible with the routers I've got, so the only option with that is to connect it via a Windows PC and share the connection - a bit flaky with Windows being Windows! Must try it with a LINUX machine because it did work well on the end of a long USB lead pushed up in the air.
I've a TP-Link TL-MR6400 which is Ok IF you've got the time to spend getting the position of the aerials right (the slightest tweak makes a big difference). It does have the option to attach external aerials though and has wired LAN ports too. In actual fact the cabin WiFi provided by the owners is via the same router fitted behind the TV - I don't know what mobile provider they use, but that connection was running at 1.5Mbps download whereas mine was generally around 14 - 19 peaking at 26Mbps in the night. No doubt if they spent a day peaking and tweaking, they could get the speed right up too (or put an external antenna up as I think there might be some foil insulation in the cabin).
If I get on well with the car camping, I'll probably end up with a decent external aerial on the car with the TP-Link and a hard-wired Raspberry PI running Pi-Hole DNS, DLNA, FTP and SMB etc. OTT for a temporary camping pod setup, but a fixed install in the vehicle would be good.
All the best.
@@104s_Unplugged All sounds brilliant Gary, love the idea of having a complete off grid system of solar powering all the gadgets, comms and lights etc while away from home camping. Funnily enough I have one of those folding panels after watching a guy freight hopping in Canada, he used one to charge up his mobile while riding the grain wagons! Had some sun here today so I got it out and was pleasantly surprised how it charged up a power bank I’d made from old laptop cells.
Yes the usb volt/current tester I have is a Keweisi, little blue thing it is, did have two but I’ve lost one so I’ll soon order another.
Thanks for all the info on the dongles and router stuff, it baffles me a bit sometimes lol, but yeah an install in the car sounds good not least it’ll save on setting up camp time being a proper mobile internet mast.
This stuff is addictive, I’ve been looking at building a USB UPS now using a TP4056 circuit board, 3v-5v USB boost board and small 6v solar panel.. Lol. All the best my friend
@@The_Last_Post - time to potter around is my biggest enemy! I was at that cabin for 7 days and had something to do every day - I don't understand the concept of being bored! Cheers.
Another great video from you Gary. I bought a solar battery maintainer from Machine Mart to keep my van's battery topped up while not in use. I think it gives out approx 8 - 11 watts. It hasn't been successful as I think my van's alarm system uses more than the solar panel puts in. Can you suggest a better solar panel to maintain my van's battery? Cheers, Sky.
Hi Sky - I tried a couple of those things when I had a Maxus van and they were the same (not enough to maintain the charge). If I come across anything, I'll let you know. Cheers.
@@104s_Unplugged much appreciated Gary?