It's been a while since I've been backpacking, but this got me to thinking....

If you're actively hiking, you can't really hang a panel on your pack and plan on it being pointed at the sun. That means either staying put to charge batteries, or bigger panels for faster charging, or bigger batteries for the days you can't effectively charge, or something like that.

Is solar charging in this case even practical? The bigger the panel, the heavier the load.

A quick and dirty, conservative calculation suggests that the lithiums would be good for a couple of days of "a few hours" at 5 watts. Probably twice that at "an hour or so."

73 -- Lynn

On 5/2/2016 9:02 AM, Walter Underwood wrote:
If you don’t mind non-rechargeable batteries, AA lithium primary cells are the 
lightest option. They are about 0.5 ounce each, so a 3000 mAh set weighs 4 
ounces. Carrying a spare set of those will be lighter than a solar panel. They 
are also 1.5 V, so you get 36 Wh from a set instead of 25 Wh from a set of 2500 
mAh NiMh cell.

On May 2, 2016, at 7:53 AM, Joe Moffatt <j...@selectconnect.net> wrote:

Anyhow, I am trying to figure out what to use for portable solar rechargeable 
power while backpacking in the mountains.   My typical trip will be 2-3 days, a 
few hours a day operating primarily CW.   5 watts is fine for CW....


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