I’m looking for a solar charger to charge a battery then use the battery to charge my phone/devices via usb connector whilst out on long rides

Anyone got any recommendations

Cheers

Not really. You’d not get enough power from it to warrant the cost. Get a USB battery from Ebay (5000mAh about £15 delivered) and charge that from home before you go out. A 10000mAh is about £24 or so.

Unless you get a huge panel and rig it up yourself, they are useless.

Bit of a post hi jack…

What the cheapest and easiest way to charge a smartphone if away camping for a weekend?

As I suggested up there. Take a (fairly cheap) battery with you. You’ll get a couple of smartphone charges from the 5000mAh battery.

I’ve got a Veho pebble as a non solar charger of laptop/phone/lights/gps. The bigger one is good for about 10 smartphone charges before it needs charging itself. Also will charge a laptop once (not an apple).

Had a solar charger and even in the strong sun in Swaziland it was crud.

A power chimp and a handfull of duracell batteries.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/330710048636

or splash out on a power monkey 2200mAh pre charged if thats going to be enough

“A power chimp and a handfull of duracell batteries”

So that argos thing, how does it work, ie do you put ordinary AA cells in to, or is it an enclosed battery ie use it to charge 1 mobile and then its useless until you can plug it in to a mains supply again?

I had a Juicebar, has a battery in it. A surprise rainstorm killed it. Given that I camp for upto a month at a time it was my first branded unit trialled in the British summer. Left out all day, hoping it doesn’t rain, it can keep up with old phones power needs, just. It cannot produce enough power to recharge a smartphone. Sending texts, using 3g for uploading pics and browsing the web, and you’re stuffed, power drops drastically in your phone.

If you’re going away for a weekend only then I recommend you simply buy an extra battery, or two, turn your phone off at night and restrict 3g usage to “necessary”. Search fleabay for the cheapest proper ones. You could get one of those large battery cases, but beware that recharging phones chews up non-rechargeable batteries and you’re going to end up dumping them in a landfill.

If you can carry weight, then a building alarm lead acid battery, female cigarette lighter socket and whatever you need from there works.

FD – the power chimp opens up and you put AA or AAA batteries in it. It means you dont need a power source to recharge it, although you can recharge rechargeable batteries inside it if you have some.

https://powertraveller.com/iwantsome/primatepower/powerchimp/

Its a pretty dumb system. Gets a bit hot stepping the voltage up from 3v to 5v, so not very efficient, but it is dependable as long as you can buy some batteries to bung in it.

I have one of these and a power monkey which has a rechargeable Lion battery in it, but of course needs charging and cant be swapped out ofr batteries.

Here’s the official page:
https://powertraveller.com/iwantsome/primatepower/powerchimp/
(note that it says not suitable for power hungry smartphones)

For smartphones, there are a couple of other options on here:
https://powertraveller.com/iwantsome/primatepower/

Powermonkey and chimps have not been getting good reviews from people using them ‘under fire’ recently. Build quality has been dubious and feedback has been the robustness wasn’t there.