In this article, we are going to see what all options we have to charge a mobile phone with Solar power.
If you are going on treks which are primarily overnight or a few days of trek in some isolated place. In such cases obviously we won’t get any electrical power, In such cases for people Solar energy would be an alternative option to keep your device charged.
And let’s see what all options do we have to charge your mobile phone with solar power:
1. Charge a rechargeable battery with a Solar panel
- With this you can recharge your mobile phone at any time of the day.
- Battery can be a Lithium-ion one or a removable AA Nickel Cadmium battery or Nickel–metal hydride battery.
- By having such types of batteries, you will have a picture of the capacity (mAh) and how many times you need to recharge your battery and how many times you can recharge your phone.
- Actually internal Lithium-ion batteries are really excellent options to have, because of its lightweight and high capacity.
- Power (W) of the solar panel will determine how quickly the internal batteries will be charged. But there will be no change in the speed at which your phone will be recharged.
- An important thing, many chargers do not have a blocking diode to stop the power draining from the phone into the empty battery, you should be monitoring the charging and disconnecting your phone from an empty battery.
- Some of the Solar chargers with integrated batteries come with a set of connectors to fit directly into your phone. If not, people need to get the connectors which are needed for your phone and the solar chargers.
2. Recharge your phone directly from a Solar panel, generally via a 12V cigarette lighter plug adapter socket (it's more or less same as people see in a car)
- People need to have Rollable or Foldable Solar panels with a cigarette lighter socket (12V). You can buy both separately. And a connector which matches 12V and your phone charging port.
- You have to make sure that the maximum rate of output of power from Solar panel of your phone should be around 0.5A@5V. Means, a 2.5W panel will not charge your phone fast in bright sunlight, anyways it gives you sufficient power in poor conditions of light.
- Some phones will accept only certain, always check the device manual before you make a decision of buying the panels.
- A major disadvantage is you will not be able to charge all over the day also if clouds are passing your phone won’t get charged.
There are many options with Brands on the market to buy, but all of them fall in any of these above two categories.
This article might not get you a picture of what to buy but will help people to decide what type of solar panels should opt for.
