At 09:38 PM 5/2/2005 -0700, Martyn Stewart wrote:
>Has anyone in the group thought about or uses portable solar power in the
>field?
>The reason I ask this is because my battery hungry recorders are eating me
>out of house & home. Has anyone had any success with these pocket iSuns or
>similar?
Even small batteries require a relatively large solar panel (= More To
Pack and Carry) and/or a lot of time. I tried a small unit once and all it
could do was hold whatever charge the batteries already had. Compare their
specs with the output specs on your wall-wart battery charger and you'll see.
IMHO unless you have no access to power at all, you're better off carrying an
ordinary charger. Even without AC power you can use a car-based charger. In
extreme cases, such as army-surplus Land Rovers in darkest Africa, carry some
wire and a small pair of pliers to connect your charger to whatever the outlet
might be, or to the car battery directly. Watch out for reversed polarity in
any old UK horseless carriage; the reason they drive on the wrong side of the
road is they wired their cars backwards.
-- Chuck
========
Chuck Bragg, Pacific Palisades, CA
Membership, Newsletter, Web manager
Santa Monica Bay Audubon Society
www.smbas.org
========
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
|