this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2024
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Hope this fits here.

It's not much in the grand scheme, but all of my everyday carry electronics are all solar charged.

Left to right: Cat S22 Flip smartphone, Bluetooth earbuds, rechargable pen light/laser pointer/black light/dog toy, and my Kobo e-reader.

They're mostly charged / topped up overnight from my 12W / 8000 mAh solar battery bank. I just throw it outside or in a window during the day and plug a USB hub into it to charge my devices overnight. My phone will usually go 2-3 days on a charge, but I've also got a 6W panel I stick in the window if it needs a little battery boost during the day. I also top off other things from the 6W panel, but those aren't exclusively solar like my EDC stuff.

Thought I was going to have to cheat a week or so ago. It was rainy and cloudy for nearly 2 weeks, and the solar battery bank was struggling to stay above 50%, but the clouds finally broke and my solar bank was able to fully recharge with a few hours of sunlight to spare.

Like I said, it's not much, but these have only ever been charged from solar**, and I think that's pretty cool.

** Except the bit of charge my phone and e-reader got from my laptop when I had it plugged into USB to flash firmware and add files.

My solar battery bank. (Not the best design with an integrated, non-removable battery, but has worked well enough)

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 15 hours ago

I've only got one older power bank that goes all glitchy like that with my 6W panel, and I really don't know why either. The output from the panel is regulated, so it should be happy with it, but it just flickers, makes a high pitched whine, and never seems to charge. Best guess is it's not able to cope with anything less than a minimum charging current that the panel can't provide. Thankfully it's only that one that is temperamental, and it's also my oldest / lowest capacity one.