Solar panels + VC4 charger or powerbank question

[quickbot]

Heya all! So its almost summer time again and i kinda want to use it camping/fishing. Now i have a question as i use sigelei dual 18650 boxmod and vape pretty much as its last me only one day with two batts. I could buy 4 extra batteries but still need to charge mobile phones. And my question is, would it be enough with 14w solar panel to charge atleast two batts in one go plus charge mobile phone in a not so slow time. Or its better to grab like 4 10k mah powerbanks from gearbest and extra 18560batts for e cig?


I cant find any good info where would be explained how fast these panels charge nor any other info that i would understand. I was thinking to buy xtar vc4 charger and somethine like 15W 6 Panels Outdoor Foldable Portable Solar Charger Pack Mobile Power Supply for Samsung Galaxy S6 S4 i9500 S5 i9600 S3 i9300 Note 3 N9000 Note 2 N7100 iPad iPhone 6 / 6 Plus 4 4S 5 5S 5C HTC ONE M9-65.27 and Free Shipping| GearBest.com

or

SUNWALK-140 14W Outdoor Foldable Portable Solar Charger Pack Mobile Power Supply for Samsung Galaxy S4 i9500 S5 i9600 S3 i9300 Note 3 N9000 Note 2 N7100 iPad iPhone 6 / 6 Plus 4 4S 5 5S 5C HTC Nokia S-69.23 and Free Shipping| GearBest.com

Would it be possible to charge two ctv4's and atleast one mobile phone in a day, if its clear sun for atleast 4 hrs and other cloudy/partialy sunny? And if so, what splitters or something i need to be able to connect mobile phones/charger as i lack english to properly search for that kind of info.


Thank you!

 

[yuseffuhler]

Is your sigelei able to be charged via usb? I know that at 15 watts you're totally fine to charge any phone or tablet.

 

[quickbot]

Nop, only way to charge is take out batts.

 

[yuseffuhler]

If you don't have a way to charge batteries via usb, you're Not going to be able to with that charger. If your battery charger uses usb then you'd be good.

 

[quickbot]

If you don't have a way to charge batteries via usb, you're Not going to be able to with that charger. If your battery charger uses usb then you'd be good.

Yea, xtar have usb charger. Only thing is to know some approx time for it to charge as all i can find is power calculations that i more than dont understand

 

[yuseffuhler]

Yea, xtar have usb charger. Only thing is to know some approx time for it to charge as all i can find is power calculations that i more than dont understand

What have you found so far? If it's 500ma per slot on the Charger..... that's either 1 or 2 amps, depending on its a 2 or 4 slot. Either way it should be good.

 

[Bunnykiller]

considering the panel puts out 5ish volts and its 15W thats about 3 amps current supply... your looking at about 2-4 hours of charge time...

 

[bussdriver]

Divide watts by volts to get current. 15 watts/5 volts=3 amps. Should be fine, but not on a cloudy day. The panel probably puts out 15 watts in maximum sunshine. With reduced light intensity, that 15 watts will begin to drop. When it gets to a point that it can't put out sufficient current to power the charger, then performance will suffer. May even be too low to run the charger without sufficient light.

In short, it should work just fine on a bright day, but if your trip turns cloudy things may slow down considerably.

 

[yuseffuhler]

Divide watts by volts to get current. 15 watts/5 volts=3 amps. Should be fine, but not on a cloudy day. The panel probably puts out 15 watts in maximum sunshine. With reduced light intensity, that 15 watts will begin to drop. When it gets to a point that it can't put out sufficient current to power the charger, then performance will suffer. May even be too low to run the charger without sufficient light.

In short, it should work just fine on a bright day, but if your trip turns cloudy things may slow down considerably.

If it's anything similar to the anker 15 watt solar charger, it'll still put out 5 watts or so in reduced light, just based on a couple reviews I found.

 

[quickbot]

Thank you very much guys, atlast i understand almost all what i needed Now just to find out if more panels are better. There is 71$ two panel 20W and there is 6panel 15W. Not sure, but looks like less panels are better or am i wrong?

 

[Thrasher]

It doesn't matter how many panels ( I have a solar setup) once you have enough power to run the charger, you can't force it to run any faster.

Same thing with wall adapter, if the charger says it takes 1 amp and you plug it into a 2 amp adapter it still only uses 1 amp.


Now more panels chained together does help to make sure there is enough power in cloudy or low light days but the charger will run same amount of time on 1 amp from wall or panel

I love my panels, I even ran an ego pass through off of it during a power outage one summer. Kept it charged no problem

 

[quickbot]

Thank you all for great info. Ordered Portable 5V 14W Solar Panel Sunpower Charger 2USB for iPhone 6 Plus 5S 5c Phones | eBay and xtar VC4, now ill be able to vape and use my phone where ever i fish without any worries

 

[Mowgli]

Good looking deal Quickbot!

Please come back after your trip and let us know how well your solar setup performs.

 

[Mowgli]

bump a cool thread day bump