The last few years have seen an exponential growth in personal electronics. Everyone you see today has a cell phone, a digital camera, an MP3 player, and maybe a laptop or ebook of some sort as well. While still fairly new, these personal appliances are becoming as common place as the television set. We like being connected to the world. We like being able to take pictures and see the results immediately. And, we enjoy carrying around our entire CD collection or libary of books. That’s just the way it is. But, part of the problem with bringing those personal appliances into the wild is having a power source to keep them running. Once the batteries are dead, then you have to make sure you have spare batteries on hand. In some cases, such as the Apple iPod, you can’t use a spare battery since the original can’t be taken out of the housing. The same is true of some cell phones, PDA’s and ebooks like the Amazon Kindle. What’s a person to do?
There are a few attempts at various solutions, and most of those are larger batteries that you can plug your personal electronics into and charge them several times before the larger battery goes dead. The downside is that even the larger battery will go dead after a few charges of the smaller batteries, and it’s also usually fairly heavy. Extra weight is not the friend of hikers and backpackers, or anyone else that has to haul their gear around. Even if they weigh nothing, you will still run out of juice in a short period of time. That’s where we come to Brunton’s solution to charging personal appliances.
There are several chargers of this design in the Solaris line including the Solaris 12, 26 and 52. The higher the model number, the greater power, the larger it is and the more it weighs. Even so, the Solaris 12 weighs only 11 ounces when you might expect it to weight twice the Solaris 6. That’s because both have common components like the cord ports on the back. So, for twice the output of the Solaris 6, the weight only increase by 57%. If you’ll look at the first picture at the beginning of the article, the main difference with the 12 is that it is twice as wide, but you would fold that section over first, and then fold it up just like the Solaris 6.
The Solaris 6 has a maxmimum output of 12 Volts like the rest of the line. The wattage rating is 6.5W and its power rating is 433 milliamps maximum. The Solaris 12 is rated at 12 Watts with a maximum of 800 milliamps. As much as I love technology, I’ll tell you that I have only a vague notion of what those numbers mean. In my mind, the bigger the model, the more power you get. That’s all I need to know. If you need more detailed info on electrical terms and ratings, then Google is your friend. However, I don’t need to know the mathematical forumlae that apply to the fundamentals of electricity to know whether or not I like a product, or if that product works for me. I just need to try it out first-hand.
Before I started the test, I made sure my iPod’s battery was drained down to the point that I could only see a sliver of the green battery bar. Once plugged in, it took one hour and forty minutes to charge the iPod to the point where the charge bar showed the plug icon (meaning it’s full). I was surprised at how quickly it charged and a bit dubious about it. So, I played some songs and ran a video for a while to see if the battery indicator would adjust on its own in case it was giving me a false reading at first. Some iPod batteries have done that in the past. But, all was well, and all indications were that it received a complete charge in that short a period of time. Not too shabby at all! While it took the full charge, I did have a bit of a nervous quibble about the Solaris 6. When using the Monster iPod charging cord in my vehicle, there is a solid red LED charging light that stays lit. While using that same cord with the Solaris 6, the red LED light flickered continuously as though it wasn’t getting enough power. Also, at the beginning of the charging test, the LCD screen on the iPod kept changing every two seconds from a charging icon to a fully-charged icon. The iPod doesn’t typically do that, so again, my thoughts were that it wasn’t getting quite enough juice to keep everything powered (iPod and LED on charging cord) fully at the same time.
Of course, the ability for the Solaris models to charge electronic equipment is going to be dependent on a few factors, the most important of which is the amount of sunlight available and the angle at which the sunlight is hitting the solar grids. If it’s not quite as bright out, it may take you a bit longer to charge your devices. The plastic sheet which unfolds to expose the grids has gromment rings at each corner. Those can be used to lightly stake the Solaris to the ground and keep it from folding up on itself from the wind or other occurrences. The clever person could also devise a way to hang the Solaris on their pack or person while they’re on the move (especially away from the sun) so they don’t have to be sitting still for their devices to charge. That will be a little trickier than just laying it out on the ground, but it could be done.
After I charged the iPod, I then turned around and repeated the same process with my XV6700 wireless phone. The beauty of this phone is that not only can I make calls on it, I can also send and receive emails, surf the internet, and upload files to my websites via a Windows Mobile FTP program. So, this is truly a necessary device for me, and it’s great to have a way to charge it while in a location without available electricity. It took longer to charge the phone than the iPOD, but there are a couple of reasons for that.
First, I have an extended life battery in the phone which is very large and stores a lot power–much more than my iPod. Also, since it was later in the day, the sunlight was hitting the solar panels in a more oblique fashion. With the sun at a lower angle, I could have easily hung the Solaris 6 from a tree limb to get more direct light, but I wanted to see how much the vector change of the light rays would impact its charging speed. If this were the only factor, it would have been better to charge the iPod again for a like comparison. But, since I was also checking out the extended battery, I just went with an anecdotal test. From the 12% power rating on the battery level, it took two hours and forty-five minutes to get it back to 100%. I can live with that quite easily. A half charge on that extended battery is equivalent to what orginally came with the phone. Also, the green LED charging light was constantly on the entire time with no flickering. Considering the size of the battery and the time of day, I was very happy with how the Solaris performed.
In all honestly, the Solaris models probably aren’t going to help most folks that are just out on a day hike. Any electronics they have with them for the day will probably have enough juice without any worries or concerns. But, the Solaris 6 is a great solution for those folks that spend several days at a time out in the field, or even for the through-hikers that spend several months on the trail. In those cases, it would be a definite benefit. Even for just the day-hikers, it might be worth tucking the Solaris away in your pack in case an emergency happens and you’re out there longer than you originally intended.
And, let’s think those times when are are just sitting at home. We recently had a bad ice storm that took out our power for several days. We had a generator, but a lot of people in our area didn’t have one. While the electricity was off, the cell phone towers were still operating and people were still making calls and listening to their music. After the storm hit and passed, the sun was out for days even though the power was still off. The Solaris model of solar chargers would come in handy for those folks that might want a cheaper alternative to a generator in order to charge things like their cell phones or other devices.
The Solaris line is a superb implementation of the solar-charging concept, and the quality in this line of products is reflective of the rest of Brunton’s gear. It’s top rate, hits the target spot-on, and addresses a need that too many others in the market ignore. I would strongly encourage the tech-savvy outdoors people to give one of the Solaris models a look. It could very possibly change your outdoors experience!
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