Harness the sun to run your gadgets (Freeloader Portable Solar Energy Charger)

Member Name: sax_man_al

Product:	Freeloader Portable Solar Energy Charger
Date:	20/10/09 (59 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Solar power, green energy, light, compact, robust

Disadvantages: Takes a while to charge, maximum 5.5v

Being an outdoors kind of person and regularly away from mains electricity I thought it would be a good idea to get something that would enable me to keep my phone going. I came across this handy little solar charger in an RSPB shop, and thought I'd give it a go.

At around £30 it was a reasonable buy, giving that piece of mind that you can keep things charged up when in remote areas for all those electronic gizmos that are now so commonplace, GPS, MP3, 2 way radio, Mobile phone...

The box is a very simple cardboard affair, and inside is a small booklet of instructions and a huge variety of connectors for a wide range of devices. Also included is a USB cable which allows you to charge the unit initially from a computer or USB socket for maximum performance which takes around 3hrs.

At 185g it's lightweight, and the brushed aluminium is pretty tough too, the solar cells are behind a rubbery plastic so shouldn't smash easily. It's also available in shocking pink which may be preferred by some.

The solar cells in the unit are rated at 120mA, which isn't much so the fastest you can charge it using these is stated at 5hrs. Obviously if there is cloud etc this will be longer.

The battery unit is 1000mAh, and has an output of 5.5v, this basically means that anything using a higher voltage than this cannot be charged. This could be quite annoying, but most things are less than this, but it is worth checking first.

One slightly annoying thing is that you can't really charge an item whilst charging the unit itself. So you have to leave it in the sun, and then can charge your gadgets in the evening once the sun has gone in. This may be different when using the extra power of the 'supercharger'.

Optional extras:

A 'Supercharger' with 1.5W solar cells which will cut charging time dramatically. If you are going to need to charge things daily then this would be a very sensible purchase, it can be clipped on the outside of your rucksack/kayak/sledge etc. There is also an AA/AAA battery charger. You can also get spare battery hubs so you can have a spare ready, and there is a camera caddy so you can charge a variety of camera/camcorder batteries!

Negative points: This unit isn't waterproof, which would be quite handy as it is an outdoors kind of tool. Mine stopped charging anything, I don't know if it was a loose connection inside or a duff wire. I got a refund easy enough and havn't seen anyone else with this problem so it's probably just one of those things! I'm getting a freeloader pro instead as I need higher voltage for my camera battery.

Other than these points it is a great little unit if you're going to be away from mains power, or if you would rather harness the sun to power your gadgets!

Summary: Ideal for keeping your electronics charged away from the mains