Solar Battery Charger!?

[Granite]

I've seen solar battery chargers for sale in Campmor.com and Rei.com for less than $20. Some how, it seems to good to be true...can these things really recharge batteries? I suppose they need really strong sunlight, but how long does it take? Has anyone used one of these?

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An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.

 

[Big-Target]

I have similar to that I bought from ccrane.com. It was modified to also power the Baygen Wind-up Radio. Works Great!!!!

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Big-Target>>>>>>SI VIS PACEM PARA BELLUM

 

[Jeff Clark]

Solar cells tend to put out a certain number of volts per cell with the amount of current going up as the cell area gets bigger. It is reasonable for a charger that only needs to put out 1.5volts (single battery cell voltage) to be pretty cheap. If it is small or the sunlight is dim it will charge very slowly. I used to have a little box that did a nice job of recharging a pair of AA cells. By having two sets of batteries (one to charge while using the other) I could keep my penlight ready to use indefinitely.

 

[Bagheera]

Hi, my personal advise if you use a solar battery charger use Ni-MH batteries instead of Ni-Cad batteries.
The charging current will probably vary quiet a lot and Ni-CAd have a lot more of memory problems then more modern Ni-MH batteries have.
But still in a "survival" situation who cares if the life expectency of the Ni-Cad drops from 1000 recharges (done proper) to half or so.

Greeting from a flu infested Holland, I caught it also, better it caught me and it's absolutely not nice.
Keep well, Bagheera

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[Turambar]

Work great! I charge AAA, AA, in an hour and D cells take all day because you always have to move them to track the sun (once an hour or so) and I find it hard to do consistently. The info on mine says that it takes about 9 hours in direct sunlight to fully charge one. I find that if I charge one for less time it works great but goes out earlier.

Turambar