Solar powered chargers

[InTheLift]

Anybody ever make/buy one of these for charging in remote locations where you may not have access to any other power source? I've seen the cell phone solar chargers. Would something like this work to charge your radio batts and/or your flight packs (4 cell radio packs)? For example, I have a Futaba wall charger that came with the radio. RX side shows the output at 4.8 volts at 100 ma. Seems attainable with some of the solar cells around. Anybody know?

[steve lewin]

I've seen solar panels being used to top up a 12V battery which is then used to drive a normal field charger. It's difficult to get a steady voltage/current out of solar panels, and it's not easy to find 16 hours of bright sunshine even if you are willing to slow charge your batteries.

Steve

[InTheLift]

Excellent points. I was thinking that in a hand launch or small sloper (not so much for e-powered planes) where you are using a small flight pack, it might be usefull to kinda freshen up the charge between flights? A full charge would be difficult on solar power, I agree. Not sure you'd wanna do this partial charge in the middle of the pack thing with Nicads, but the Nimhs don't seem to mind.

[robert harik]

I have used them in remote locations to charge a 12 volt car battery for powering a com. radio transmitter. As I remember it was about 10 by 18 inches. I used the radio a couple of times a day and even in somewhat cloudy conditions it kept the battery charged enough to work.

[treehog]

A typical small sailing boat will carry a small panel to charge 12v battery 10 inchs by 18 inch size

At best midday it supplies 1.5 amps and so typicaly average is .8 amps or less

Connected into 12v or 10 cell nicads of 3000mh it could supply power to charger to recharge radio and reciever packs

If weight and cost are not an issue a petrol generator will supply 8 amps and cost mere cents to run

If its windy a typical boat wind generator will give 3 amps

Solar is very low power and expensive fragile and only gives max powers for 4 hours around midday

Ralf

[InTheLift]

Hey thanks Ralf! Good input. I'm looking for portability in a carry it in my backpack kinda way so even though a generator would be nice, a bit too bulky for what I am looking for. Never thought about some type of wind generator...might work too...windy? Better be, I'm talking about slope flying!:D

[treehog]

The most portable solution is a dedicated 10 cell nicad or nimh pack such as rc2400

This will with a fast charger recharge 1000 mha rc transmiter and 1000 mha reciever

Wind power machine is typicaly 8 bladed 2 foot plus diameter prop connected to an alternator the size and weight of a typical car alternator EG heavy bulky and then you need to put it on top of some sort of mast

I often bring with me a 7 amp hour gel cell lead acid and use that for recharging
It not as light as nicad or nimh and it cant supply more than1.2 amps so charging times are longer but it the cheapest easiest soulution

I also have a 18 amp hour gel cell lead acid but thats heavy about half the weight of typical car battery and it can supply 3 amps speeding up recharging
If your only back packing a few hundred feet it ok but forget it if your going a mile or more as gravity sucks and it gets heavier by the square of the distance

Ralf