Whatever so yeah the deal is. These things are mega mega popular these days, everyone's kind of going green and all this and and that's good.
There are a few problems with the most popular models, not the least of which is that they are incredibly expensive for what you get. So I just want to do a quick little chat about my preferred USB charger and talk a little bit about some of the problems with the other ones.
So, okay, so the first the first type is. This is not actually a solar USB charger.
This is simply a USB power bank got lithium-ion cells inside you've got USB ports, and basically you stick this sucker in it takes about 11 hours to get to a full charge.
This guy.
What I want to charge my phone, my USB cable, plug it into my phone.
This guy will actually charge my phone about five times, a full charge: 2,700 milliamp hours five times its hefty.
It also weighs a metric ton, so one of the most popular types is something like this with a solar panel eyes and the big problem with these is that number one they're very expensive.
They can be 70, 100, 150 dollars and they're very popular. It's they're, not very good, because when you have a solar panel, it's this size.
When you look at the actual specs of these things, you can buy one, that's slightly smaller than this. It's got. The solar panel and it'll have like a battery capacity.
The what I'm thinking of is 10,000 milliamp hours and then you look at the size of the solar panel and then you look at the amount of current that's generated by the solar panel and you quickly realize that if they say oh well, it's got a. You know you: can you put it in, like the Sun charges, your batteries and by the way, to fully charge the 10,000 milliamp hour? Battery pack will take 16 hours.
So you do a quick calculation and you realize that that little solar panel is outputting, a very small current, which is why it takes so long to charge the battery pack and the other problem is that solar panels will actually output their maximum current.
Only in preferably direct Sun lights, because it's very, very bright, very intense light, of course they're going to work indoors.
They will work indoors in artificial light, but usually it has to be very, very bright indoor light in order for the panel to work at maximum efficiency and generate the maximum amount of juice to charge your gizmo.
So this this general type.
I know this doesn't have a solar panel.
I don't have one, but that's why I didn't buy one because they're not very good, so pretend this has a solar panel that type I don't buy in more ways than one.
The the other thing is that it's actually not a very well thought out idea, because if you have lithium ion settles inside this thing, you don't want to put a solar panel on top and stick it in the Sun, because batteries, especially lithium-ion batteries and the electronics Inside do not like sunlight, in fact, if you have like a cell phone or tablet, one of the things you'll read in the instructions is, do not put this in direct sunlight, so you don't want to put your battery pack or your phone or your tablets in Direct sunlight, so the very idea of having a battery pack with a solar panel on top that can only reach its maximum production capacity in direct sunlight is kind of not very smart, okay, so the second type is something like this: it's a little vole craft.
This is a little bit little bit older.
Basically, the you open, the sucker up.
You'Ve got.
You know two little solar panels, this one's okay.
The thing is it's! Okay, if all you want to do is recharge like a little like mp3 player or something the actual even-even with both of these.
These solar panels that size right this guy is going to output a maximum of 250 milliamps.
So if I have, if I have say a 2700 milliamp hour phone battery - and this is only outputting 250 milliamps less than one tenth of the capacity of my battery, that means it's going to take approximately 11 hours for this guy in direct sunlight or in very Very very bright light to fully charge the battery of my phone that also kind of isn't going to do.
I might want to use it.
I mean it's great because it's smaller and it's portable and you know buddy guy.
It's like you're trading, this very small size and sometimes lightweight but you're, not really getting anything from it, because you can't just take out on your lunch hour and plug it in and it's not going to charge the battery appreciably. So it's not very useful. So the one that I recommend actually is this guy, which is big blue 28 watt, solar charger.
He it's very like it's very large.
Obviously it does not fit easily into your pocket. It would fit well. If you have a big purse, you can fit it in there or throw it in your backpack or something when you unfold it.
You get four ginormous solar panels now you might think that that's a little bit crazy, but the thing is that this guy outputs, according to the spec five volts, four point: four amps, that's 4400 milliamp hours and this guy's inside here he has there's a little box Here and it has three USB ports - one is rated at 2.4, amps, 2.4 amps and one amp.
Now, of course, it says the maximum is going to.
Output is only 4.4 amps, but if you divide that between the two high-capacity USB ports, you're charging at a 2200 milliamp hour rate.
So if I have a twenty seven hundred million power battery, this guy in in direct sunlight would be capable of actually charging. Two of my cell phones, at the actual full charging rate that I would get if I plugged in the AC charger in though in the power plug in the wall and stuck in my phone.
If it's in direct sunlight, if it's not in direct sunlight, it's still going to work and it's still going to charge my following very very quickly, because this little dude he's so small that he can only output.
Like you know, 250 milliamps, and even if he's in super bright light, it's still going to take 11 hours to charge my battery. If it's not in super bright light, if it's just in like some daylight or a fluorescent tube above it, it's going to take way longer than 11 hours.
So that's why I don't like the small ones and plus many of these small ones, including this types with solar panel on top, these things are ridiculously expensive. This guy is fifty two dollars which is much cheaper than many of these very popular ones that everyone are buying, there's also a version. This one has four solar panels.
There's another version, that's slightly lower power. It knocks off the third solar panels.
So your fourth solar panels, so you only have three uhm. The difference in price is like forty four dollars.
Instead of this one is 52. I just went with this one and I'm very happy with it because yeah so that's kind of the deal is it's. You know it's big and clunky, but you don't really get enough use to make it worthwhile unless you have big big solar panels and it's it's still fairly handy, because it's very lightweight and it folds up into a small space.
They also give you these cool, big, blue carabiner clips so like if you're going backpacking, you can clip it onto the back of your backpack and charge your phone while you're wandering through the wilderness.
I don't know whatever so um yeah.
There is one more thing I wanted to say and I don't remember what it was blah blah blah blah yadda yadda uh yeah, so that's about it uh. I remember this.
Guy doesn't have a battery built in he's. Just got USB ports, you put it in. In light, preferably direct sunlight, because then you can charge two or three big gizmos at the same time, but he doesn't have a battery pack he's fifty two dollars.
This you see technology 22400 milliamp-hour power bank is, i think, it's about $ 32 on amazon.com.
So, basically, for you know, like 85 bucks, you get your USB power bank and a really really good solar charger.
You can use them together if you want, you can use and separate whatever and you're paying less money than one of these uber fancy.
Gizmos like this.
With the panel built in and it's kind of a no-brainer so and again, if you don't like the big size of this, and you want to go with a small one, you can it's like.
That's your cup of tea, just be aware that when you have these very small things with even some of the smaller units like this, where it folds open and has multiple panels, they still have relatively small charging currents as compared to this thing, because the larger the Panels are the more actual charging current you're going to get so at this point, the technology is not really good enough, where you should go with a really small one, at least I certainly don't think so.
So so that's it. I recommend the big blue 28 watt solar charger and if you want to get a get a USB power bank.
