Looking at the brief periods in the test runs where it did well plus the less-formal spot checking we performed, where we watched the meters for a few minutes but didnt record, we could see maybe getting this panel up to 7W sustained under absolutely ideal sunlight and load conditions. USB charging devices whether theyre battery packs or solar panels have USB ports with nominal 5V outputs. Started with the smallest ones because theyre most appropriate for BOBs, cheapest, and cover the basics for charging phones etc. Its as if the testers attempt to draw a higher load really threw it for a loop. And people do use both ports simultaneously. To see how important the sun angle is in real wattage numbers, heres a graph of an orientation test with the BigBlue 3 28W panel on a sunny, early September day at about noon. Read more, Keep one (or two) of these in your emergency go-bags. Test notes: The Nektecks power output was extremely clean and stable over all the runs, and it matched the sunlight level closely. 3. The record of mAh accumulated was consistent with the power staying in that range when I wasnt watching it. The Renogy is much smaller and lighter than both. On the other hand, grab the BigBlue 28W Solar Charger if you want more power and are willing to deal with a larger panel. Im refering this report for choosing solar charger. This instability under a higher load is something weve seen in a few of the panels, and as in the other cases, we think the cause is probably heat-related. We ran a number of shorter tests on the panels that didnt make it above 4.2V in the main test runs, in order to directly confirm that if we dial down the current draw to about 1 amp, the voltage gets well north of 4.2. Definitely plan on doing more solar guides. ); Thanks for doing this testing! Even under cloud cover, this unit can still put out a clean trickle charge, which is not something we saw with the other smaller panels (or even in some of the larger panels). The Prepared helps you get ready for emergencies without wasting time, money, or sanity. This may have been an issue for older panels, but it seems to have been fixed in the current generation. Get the biggest you can within your space, weight, and budget limits. But on the third run it just went nuts. Our guess is that this instability was related to heat buildup from the very high levels of sunlight and the increased power draw. Besides normal qualities like price and durability, our goal was to isolate the panels and test their efficiency under different weather conditions, honing in on what kind of power output you can get depending on sunlight and changing environmental conditions. A 5V + 2A = 10W USB port does not push 10W of power into whatever you plug into it. It was a great performer in every area, and though it wasnt quite as stable on all the test runs as its closest competitors, overall it out-delivered everyone else. As for the first run, there was a lot of instability, which really hurt the chargers average power and total Wh output over the course of the run. We rotated the panel through a series of positions while making an audio recording of calling out the positions and timestamps so that we could mark them on the graph above. You can see how clean the power and efficiency plots are for most of the tests and how rock solid the power output stays during full sunlight conditions. Heres whats going on: Most modern USB devices, whether its a battery bank or an e-reader, have a controller chip that will intelligently charge the internal battery when you plug them in to one of these panels. From there we chose the models that seemed like the best candidates, narrowing the field down to 15 for in-person testing. The one slight downside to this panel is the efficiency you need to get north of 600 W/m2 (a moderately sunny day with a good panel angle) in order to see the full power output.
{ like the one below. Bigger panels always perform better. Thats an improvement, but its still partially testing the battery and not just the panel in isolation. On a subsequent run with more sustained sunlight it did better. Looks like you can still get the panel directly from their home page here: https://choetech.com/products/solar-charger-19w-solar-phone-charger-with-dual-usb-ports. We didnt see any bubbling or other damage from heat. Similarly, we found the amps coming out of a USB port almost never reached the rated maximum. I appreciate for your reply. Might be just an issue with actual devices and possible USB power renegotiation, not visible on a load tester with power and gnd only? 12 volt equipment is more likely to be useful in a grid down situation than 5 volt stuff.
however I think it is too high for smartphone but if I will use laptop ,may be appropriate. The main downsides to this panel are size and weight. I bet you have some thoughts! Again, though, these are ballpark numbers, because the iPhone would vary its voltage needs and current draw from the panel as its internal battery progresses through its charge cycle. We then shared our results with one of their engineers, who suggested we retest at a 1.5A draw that did produce more stable results, they just werent very good results. Looks like at least the Big Blue might have actually benefited from multi-port testing given how close it came to matching (or even overcoming) the listed amperage? For the weight, price, and performance, its clearly at the top of the heap. Total panel area directly affects power output especially when dealing with constant low-light conditions so preppers in locations like the Pacific Northwest may need to bite the bullet and carry a bigger charger if they really care about power preparedness. The build quality is solid, just like the Ryno, but we did like the CHOETECHs embedded metal rings more than the cloth loops on the Ryno. Most other sites went the quicker and cheaper route by taking the panel outside on a sunny day, plugging a partially charged Li-Ion battery into the panel for a set period of time, then judging the results solely by how many % points the battery increased (e.g. Choetechs been booted from Amazon! Although bigger is clearly better, the idea is to be portable, which is why we chose not to include panels we felt were too big for a common go-bag.
We broke 1,000 w/m^2 on a 108F bright Texas day, otherwise a normal sunny day with the sun directly overhead was in the 750-900 range, partly cloudy or with the sun at an angle would be 500-750, and real cloud cover would get down to about 120. Just get the biggest you can within your space, weight, and budget constraints.
We worked with Goal Zeros support, thinking we may have received a bad unit, but the results were the same after they sent us replacement junction boxes. As a result, rather than tune the current draw for each panel, we chose to use a constant 2A. 0% spam. Do they each get charged at half the rate? This panel produced slightly less peak power than the Ryno in most of our testing, but the overall performance is close enough in most conditions. So even the panels that have voltage readings in the 2.5V range will get up to 4.2V and fully charge a battery if you lower the current draw, as long as the device that battery is in has a charge controller that can manage the process by varying the current. Ill survey reviews of high watt solar charger. Because ambient temp affects panel performance, we also tried to get a sense of how well panels handled the heat while baking in the sun by using the thermal FLIR camera built into a CAT S61 smartphone. Rather, your device can pull up 10W or whatever the rated maximum of the port is at a time. We definitely intend on covering home gennies, just dont know when. The Prepared is more like a curated wiki than a blog. I want to be able to charge my devices as quickly as possible compared to using a smaller panel. We only tested one USB port, even if the charger had multiple, because with panels of this relatively small size you really want to charge one thing at a time. To compare it directly to a similarly-sized competitor, the Choetech, it weighs slightly more and produces about half the power. In fact, we even got it all the way up to 12W for a bit on one test run. theres a lot more to picking the right charger and learning how to use it effectively than you might imagine. Any chance youd do an article on home generators for emergencies like power failures? Since an iPhone XS battery is 9.8Wh, it wouldve charged to about 95% (from zero) in an hour. These two panels are closely comparable, but while the Choetechs performance is better, the Nektecks design is slightly more versatile and durable it has a flap with three embedded rings on one end, a two embedded rings on the USB port end. A proper test will measure performance and variables over time. 10% to 15% charged). I think this was a shortcoming of the testing with some of the smarter panels, as it looks like theyre trying to get the tester to talk to them and negotiate, and it doesnt. Bottom line: The $70 BigBlue 3 28W is a large, high-quality panel, with extremely clean power output that correlates tightly with sun input. Thanks for all the great reviews and info. It comes with an integrated 8000mAh battery that cannot be removed, which we generally dislike and makes the testing harder. Reviews: Portable battery banksand removable rechargeable batteries. And FHA battery restrictions may have changed since then, so check with FHA before you buy, if your bugout location require a quick flight like ours does. Chargers with smaller overall panel area were also more sensitive to a wider range of sunlight conditions. A panel at a bad angle at high Noon will perform worse than the same panel pointed directly at the sun at 6 PM. You can get the base numbers for voltage and amperage from the spreadsheet for each test run. Being prepared for emergencies means being able to generate electricity without the grid. We laid each panel out flat in the sun on an elevated Coolaroo pet bed over a light-colored stone deck so that air could circulate underneath. Bottom line: Everything we said above about the Nomad 14 Plus applies to the $80 Goal Zero Nomad 7 Plus, but even more so. Get our free newsletter for great new articles and giveaways. But given the problems we encountered, we cant recommend the Aeiusny. The more watts your charger puts out, the faster your gear will charge. This will only work if the sun is directly behind you or you can get some portion of the panel on top of the bag. (function() { Bottom line: The $57 Ryno Tuff Dual USB 21W unit came out on top in power output, watts per ounce, and price. 1) If were not supposed to fry our phone battery by putting it in direct sunlight, why is it okay to fry the battery pack? We have no complaints about the overall build quality, and we appreciate that theres not a lick of extraneous material to weigh it down. This charger just couldnt keep enough current coming consistently to break 4Wh under a 2A load. of capacity legal as carry-on baggage. The charger touts the following feature on its Amazon listing page: SMART IC TECHNOLOGY: The Aeiusny Solar Panel has Smart IC Technology that detects the device using USB PIN signals and provides optimal charging power and optimal charging speed for both Android and iOS devices simultaneously, automatically adjusting to the demands of the device.. Youve written square meters everywhere instead of square feet. We tested at a variety of attempted current draws, from 1.5A up to 2.8A, and we really couldnt get this charger to put out more than 9W. If you dig into the test data, youll see that few of the panels ever got up to the 4.2V needed to fully charge the average Li-Ion battery, much less stayed there over the course of a run. Even a few degrees off of 90/perpendicular makes a noticeable difference. The folding solar panel was rugged, but it took some explaining to get Fidel to follow the sun with it thus achieving maximum charge. 3) Did your load tester adhere to any USB power standards (I know, there have been many, incl. How to figure out your device charge times, Why other hiking solar charger reviews are flawed, Nerdy notes on how to read the full test results, the beginners guide explains how to convert, https://choetech.com/products/solar-charger-19w-solar-phone-charger-with-dual-usb-ports, Food list: How to build your survival pantry with long-lasting food from the supermarket, Best water purification tablets (and other portable purifiers), Emergency preparedness checklist: Prepping for beginners. In simple terms, thats how much energy hits a surface thats one square meter (about 10 square feet). For one test we may have dialed in a 2A load thats only showing 2.5V, but if we dial it back to 1A on another run then we can always get closer to 5V. Youll see that the sunlight level is constant at about 750W/m2, but the panels power output swings wildly with each position. The BigBlue did far better in moderate sunlight than any other panel in this roundup, getting up to 8W in conditions where the other panels wouldve struggled to produce 4.5W. How long will it take to charge my phone?
Despite how simple these USB solar chargers appear you put them in the sun and plug your gear into them, right? Be careful flying with the battery pack because it is lithium ion and many have almost the max amount (24,000mAh ??) But ultimately, as much as we liked this panel, wed rather either add an ounce and a half and get one of the more powerful chargers like the Ryno Tuff or Choetech, or go all the way down to the Renogy to really save weight. Clear day (cloudless for vast majority of the test) temps in the 70s F, I adjusted the tilt every hour or two, and got a pretty consistent output in the range of 2.8 to 3.3 watts (4.7+ volts, 0.5+ amps) throughout the peak hours of the day ~10 am to ~5 pm. This definitely related to its smaller size. The Goal Zero Nomad 7 Plus, Goal Zero Nomad 14 Plus, Renogy Portable E.Flex 10W, iClever USB Solar Charger, and X-DRAGON 14W have been discontinued.
Email me new articles and giveaways 1-2 times per month, Emergency preparedness checklist: prepping for beginners, Rational reasons why you should be prepared, Get our free newsletter for more reviews and how-to's, Difference between advertising and reality. the Foxelli charger), which often indicates a shared supplier or factory. So sad to see a company that didnt need to do fake reviews still doing them but good on Amazon for taking action, because fake reviews do nothing but hurt the community. It could be that the panel technology is that efficient under some ideal lab conditions, but by the time they package it into a charger and hang some USB ports off it, that efficiency is lower. The charger put out well above 2A for most of that run, and even got all the way up to 2.5A above its rated 2.4A maximum for a little while. Read more, A high-quality smart battery charger is a critical part of your energy prepping. For the third run, the irradiance meter wasnt recording, but the sky was clear until around 3pm, when the power output started to drop steadily with a few dips. The USB ports on the solar chargers we tested rated at different amperages, so in our spreadsheet we list the maximum amperage of the highest amperage port on each charger. Even when you account for the smaller size than the rest of the panels in this review, thats just not good enough. This chart shows the amount of sun a test panel received over an hour (yellow) which was consistent on a sunny day, how much power the panel put out from that sunlight at any given moment (red/watts), and how much cumulative energy was sent to the USB device (blue/watt-hours). Power output greatly depends on angle to the sun but if the solar charger is not with kick stand. This is not as big a deal as it may seem. But even on a one-hour 1A run where we simulated a clear day by removing the cloud cover from the dataset, the power still swung around a bit and we ended up with 2.7W average. The duration of most of the tests was at least one hour, though we often let panels run for far longer to get a picture of how they performed under a wide range of conditions. Read more, 70+ items from local stores that are great for your pantry. Thats pretty close to irradiance you get at a cloudless day around noon in many parts of the world, at the equator its more. Its honestly a bit disturbing that you cant; that kind of exaggeration is not tolerated elsewhere in the solar market (if anything, commercial panels usually outperform by a few percent when tested; a 20W panel might actually go to 21w under ideal conditions). } But we found instability even down to 1A. Finally, perhaps the most serious problem with the most popular solar panel tests is that there is not a single solar irradiance measurement in them in fact, theres often not even a weather report!
These portable solar panels, which are typically marketed for backpacking, hiking, or camping, are a core part of many peoples go-bags and car kits. We were able to get a sustained 4.5V at 2A for a steady flow of 9W of power to one of this two USB outputs when the weather cooperated. As someone with friends in Californias wildfire areas where the blackouts are *still* ongoing, itd be nice to get some good recommendations for a care package Ill be sending their way. A few thoughts/questions: 1. Some of these folks are on tight budgets so the batteries are often part used Golf Cart or Fork lift truck batteries, one old dude I met was using batteries salvaged from submarines originally. Read more, A cheap but core item for your go-bag. Its lightweight with solid build quality and impressive performance for the size. Each battery holds a certain number of watt-hours of energy. The idea is to get a realistic picture of what each panel can do, while also coming up with a meaningful way to rank them fairly. Depending on the specifics of the battery there may be a little wiggle room, but 4.2V is what you should aim for. At best, you should use those numbers to understand relative differences between products. 2A also felt like the right threshold to reflect modern smartphones, tablets, etc. Solar Camp advertises this package as lightweight and waterproof, and while we didnt test the latter claim this time around, its probably valid. Vague talk of sunny or passing clouds isnt nearly precise enough. But then youre overpaying for poor general performance with GZ, so it defeats the purpose. Like it or not, the answer is it depends. There are so many different factors that go into that question that any blanket answers are lying for the sake of ease. I ran a sloppier test, it was still enough to give me a pretty good ballpark. In general, the panels held a steady voltage while the amperage varied a bit. Bottom line: We loved the $30 Renogy E.Flex 10W charger and some of our testers bought a few for their families. We used in the results from these shorter runs when they seemed appropriate, and werent dogmatic about only using the number from the 2A load.
You dont have to baby the panel every few minutes, just be smart about your positioning. Its better to have that kind for larger at-home stuff rather than trying to piece together multiple portable panels. 2) I didnt test both USB, but in the next version I will try loading two ports at a time and see how that works. Unfortunately, we didnt snap a picture with the FLIR on this run, so we cant say for sure how hot the panel got at peak. Many of the products in this guide sell versions with and without a battery built into the solar charger. Ultimately, even though the Solar Camp is lighter and is capable of 4.9W output for short stretches under ideal conditions, we still dont think its really in the same class as the Renogy for two reasons: The Solar Camps performance may come down to the fact that it is is using a panel design thats different than anything else in this roundup. Bottom line: Avoid the $50 RAVPower 16W Solar Charger. If the renogy is so durable, would two panels linked together be a better option than one big blue, and does the output increase proportionately with the number of panels connected, or are there any losses in efficiency?
Since power = volts x amps, you can get 5W of power from 2.5V x 2A, or from 5V x 1A.
We never got real efficiency numbers over about 14% for even the best of these chargers under the most ideal conditions. Stay away from Goal Zero, as all of their stuff failed our tests pretty badly last year. If it has integrated rings, it would weigh more because they would have to expand the amount of extra case material all the way around to accommodate them. Based on our current numbers, this panel just falls into a weird size/performance spot that makes it hard to recommend, despite our love for it. Does anyone have recommendations (or could you do a whole article???) Could you explain?
Read more, Our 40 favorites after reviewing hundreds of packs. Test notes: In the first test run, there was one roughly 15-minute stretch where this panel sustained about 2A. Test notes: In the first run, it started out steady and then went crazy at about the 40 minute mark, with the power fluctuating wildly. Consider answering which car can drive furthest on a gallon of gas? To test that, youd need everything else to be the same the same tires, same route, same weather conditions, same type of oil and gas, same weight in the vehicle, and so on. Using marine grade PV panels and boat micro turbines or Expedition / Overlander spec kit (sometimes salvaged) is another option, OFF THE GRID by Duncan Kerridge 9781902175560, Do it yourself 12 volt solar power by Michel Daniek 9781856230728. Most of the panels were provided by the manufacturer, but that never breaks our Prepared Promise. on: function(evt, cb) { Fridges, TVs, Heaters, Microwaves, Electric toilets, LED lights, switchgear, aircon units etc and install them in their homes and cabins. But I have built my own 12 volt systems for my DIY RV. For the bigblue-3 run, we had the tester try to draw 3A. Bottom line: The $55 CHOETECH 19W is exceptionally lightweight and compact for the amount of juice it produces, coming in under a pound. The USB load tester was set to draw two amps of current. This fairly-priced and high-power charger is not exactly compact at 1 pound and 1 square meter of panel surface area, but it's thin and light enough to be fine in a typical pack. In the UK campers, RVers and some preppers use portable power packs as the power reserve for 12vdc back up systems. And you may have noticed the lack of ads and other junk. } But the $150 Goal Zero Nomad 14 Plus just did not deliver. Although would have really appreciated if you addressed these questions, at least informally, as they might affect the real world performance a lot: 1) Intermittent sun charge recovery while it can be surmised from the graphs over time, some panels allegedly recover pretty badly from just a short shading (some versions of Big Blue 28W IIRC took longer if ever to get to full charging current after a brief shade, I had to unplug and plug it again usually). They have actually mentioned both models in this review. That measuring gear logged lots of data over each testing session (typically a sample every 10 seconds), which we collected with a custom computer script to analyze the data and turn it into charts. The CHOETECH 19W is a great alternative if you can find the CHOETECH for about the same price as the Ryno Tuff, confidently grab whichever one youd like. It bombed pretty hard on the 2A runs, which we cant hold against it because Foxelli only claims 1.85A max. So the chip will alter the charging ports current draw to suit the batterys voltage needs for whatever part of the charging cycle its at if its early in a charge cycle, it may need a lower voltage and/or current than at the end of the cycle. Heres the link for the newer version: https://www.amazon.com/Charger-Waterproof-Portable-Cellphones-Electronics/dp/B07MB83DCJ/ref=dp_ob_title_wld. The best portable solar panel for most people is the Ryno Tuff 21W. Some of these chargers hit maximum output even as late as 7 PM just through proper positioning. proprietary), or just Vbus and GND connected? The Renogys build quality is off the charts, especially compared to the thin, flexible Solar Camp. The temperature of the panel affects its efficiency at converting that irradiance into electricity. All measurements were taken from the first USB port, or from the quick-charging port if the panel had one. Would be interesting to know if the larger size does give you anything more than just coping better in less than optimal light conditions. Another great article, thank you for the free research. Turning the panel to 45 degrees facing away from the sun dropped the power output all the way down to two watts. Speaking of books, I wanted to bring your attention to the best books list we updated yesterday. Also, what are best practices for propping portable panels up so that they are at the correct angle? We never could get this compact charger to stay stable at 2A, and it underperformed even the Foxelli charger by most metrics. Portable solar chargers pair well with a rechargeable battery pack (either a single Li-Ion pack or a charger for AA-style batteries), and some of them even come with a built-in battery pack. Tuning the draw for each felt like that was more about testing the advertising claims, which was less important than real-world use. Youll see from our test data that by pushing up the amperage we were able to max out even the largest panels with just one port filled, so were confident that our ranking of the panels still holds even if we loaded more than one port. The batterys temperature and the rate at which its charged and discharged both impact how much charge it holds. All material on The Prepared is copyrighted. Rather, charge a battery pack first, then use that pack to charge your phone.
I hooked it up to a usb powerbank, through a datalogging usb meter. More sophisticated sites will fully drain a battery pack, then plug it in and charge it, measuring the cumulative charge with a power meter. Nice test! Are any of these panels capable of being linked together? For the scientifically inclined, theres a strong correlation with a p value of 0.8. Common sense prepping, straight to your inbox. 
does anyone have idea to adjust angle between soft folding solar charger and sun light? Can you tell me if this newer version does anything better (or worse) than the version you recommend? Here is what it says: > We strongly recommend pairing a solar charger with a separate external USB battery bank so that you dont have to ruin your gadgets built-in batteries by baking them in the sun during a charge cycle. On the fourth test run, which was done with the load tester set to draw 3A of current, you can see that the panel spent most of its time close to zero, with the current spiking upwards periodically to between 1A and 2A.
Excellent performance at a great price in a compact package. Its sensitive to load, though, so it wasnt until we dialed the load back to 1A that it reached peaked efficiency. More: Check out the beginners guide to off-grid power for the basics in simple terms and what kind of gear you need for your goals. Thats just as flawed as claiming a car can do 50 miles per gallon because the reviewer measured the gas efficiency while rolling downhill while idling. Im sure its not that neatly broken out, but Im trying to get the general idea. They are normally PV panel and micro wind turbine combos connected to battery backs. Seems they got in trouble for creating fake positive reviews or something. If thats the only reason, its only $5 more for the battery version of the Ryno at the moment, so maybe its worth it to still use an external battery but also use the Rynos built-in as a backup. Much more on this in a following section, though. If you could share a link to that panel, that would be great for others to see and possibly consider when they are buying a portable solar panel. The main question in most cases the only question that everyone wants an answer to when shopping for portable USB solar chargers is: how long will this take to charge my phone if I put it in direct sunlight?
best emergency solar panels
