Testing Solar Gear on Kilimanjaro
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 02. 7.08
The New York Times asked a typical American family, the Tishmans (they own a few buildings in New York) to test some solar charging devices when they do what typical American families do when they climb Mount Kilimanjaro, namely take along iPods, cellpones and BlackBerries.
The Brunton Solo, shown above and TreeHugger here, in combination with its battery unit, was quicker to charge but “quite a lot heavier” than other units and said set-up was trickier.
The Solio Hybrid (Treehugger here on a different model) was the “lightest” and “most convenient” and was the family’s favorite. It was “easiest to use,” Mrs. Tishman said. Gabe Tishman carried the Solio during much of the climb, lauding its water-resistant design. Mr. Tishman termed it the “least powerful” but said that its ability to charge by day and recharge devices by night mitigated that factor.
Also along for the ride was the Soldius 1, shown on Treehugger way back in '05. more in the ::New York Times
Image credit Sheryl Tishman
key thing for this article or the NYT test itself, would be to state the real world performance data of a solar charger. does it do what the manufacturers state?
I bought a freeloader, brand new, and it didn't work. it sounds great, looks and feels good but i could only get juice from it if i had the battery plugged into the computer and my phone into the battery. a waste of materials i think. still, i would buy another if someone would confirm it works in the right conditions.
performance data is the most vital thing here, yet it is overlooked too often in a buy bye buy sorta world
Those panels are only about 1W when positioned in the sun as shown. Isn't there anything better? What about those manual chargers?
Consumerism at its best. Just what we need, to bring our cell phone, gps, weather gauge, ipod, camera, video camera, heck even a mini-laptop to a mountain so that we can uh... enjoy the wilderness... while still downloading emails, listen to pop music (and like omg see the album art in a 20 pixel box!), talk to our bestest friends to stay in the loop on gossip. But wait, now I don't have to carry batteries!
Joking aside, the only electronics I bring are a cell phone which I keep off so I don't need to worry about charging and it's just there in case serious help is needed, and a GPS which is turned on a few times a day that I can enjoy the trails a little more and worry about getting lost a lot less.
If you are camping for a week or two and you need extra batteries, then you need to turn off the gadgets, look up, and enjoy the nature for once.