"Are any of you using solar battery chargers on extended trips?" I used a small solar nicad charger successfully on a 30-day kayak trip in 1996. Except for an eight-day spell of cloudy weather, I kept enough sets of AA nicads charged for two flashlights, my Nikon N90S camera and its flash unit, and a Garmin 38 GPS. The small charger I have will do a set of two AAs, Cs, or Ds in two to eight hours, depending upon sun intensity. It is not a waterproof unit, and there are probably better ones out there, but I haven't had time to research the alternatives. There isn't much of this type of stuff available through the outdoor industry, probably because of the throwaway mentality. On that trip, I also had a 12-volt solar panel for a gel-type bilge pump battery, which I have used for years. But a diode or something must have gone bad, because it discharged the battery completely. In summary, I think the concept is great if you can find the components and rig something up. -Andy Knapp Minneapolis +5F, a warm spell, no paddling on the Mississippi, but bicycling is great- no arriving at work all sweaty. *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************
At 01:26 AM 1/12/99 -0500, Andy Knapp wrote: > >The small charger I have will do a set of two AAs, Cs, or Ds in two to >eight hours, depending upon sun intensity. It is not a waterproof unit, and >there are probably better ones out there, but I haven't had time to >research the alternatives. There isn't much of this type of stuff available >through the outdoor industry, probably because of the throwaway mentality. > RealGoods sells a solar recharging unit where the solar cells are in a plastic waterproof sandwich. The 2 battery holder however, is not waterproof, but could be put inside a small waterproof box, bag, etc. It recharges AAs in about 6 hours. They are online. Greg Welker Current Designs Pisces CLC Cape Charles Modified West Wight Potter P-19 #448 "Good seamanship is using superior judgement to prevent the need to use superior skills." *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:32:55 PDT