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I bought a portable 30W solar panel to get ready for the apocalypse (thelemmy.club)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/pics@lemmy.world
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I'm only half kidding. I'm a bit of a prepper and I have lots of powerbanks and devices that charge from USB but besides idling my truck I really had no other way to charge any of them in case of a long-term power outage which seemed a bit of an oversight on my part.

Not like this solves the issue. 30 watts (under ideal conditions) isn't much but it's a start.

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[–] 31 points 2 months ago (13 children)

Also be careful storing powerbanks at full charge, charge them at 80% or ideally around half for maximum longevity

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  • [–] 22 points 2 months ago (10 children)

    Also don't charge devices directly from solar power because voltage changes drastically due to sun movement and clouds. Better load a power bank and use that to charge the other devices as power banks are much more resilient to changing voltages.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 month ago (9 children)

    don’t charge devices directly from solar power

    Unless your power bank has a built in charge controller, this should also include your power bank. At its core, a power bank is nothing more than a big ass lithium ion (or maybe potassium ion, if it's newer) battery, just like the one in any other device.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (7 children)

    Potassium ion?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    Indeed. They're all the rage in China right now (I AM NOT A TANKIE). Some are predicting they're the "next generation" of battery technology.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium-ion_battery

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    Errr I am pretty sure those are currently only in use in prototyping and research, did you mean a different battery technology?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago* (2 children)

    Yeah, I think I meant Sodium-ion

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    It also saves a lot of money to do this. I've found it takes almost as much power to go from 80 to 100 as it does to go from 0 to 80.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 month ago

    It doesn't. It takes longer to charge to 100, but the efficiency is basically the same. The amp draw drops after 80%. If you are using a engine to charge, you would lose efficiency because of the extra time, but using solar wouldn't have this issue.

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