Mt Whitney Zone Forums Gear Heads Recommendation for solar charger?

Would anyone care to offer thoughts (recommendations or "do not buy") on a light weight solar charger to charge my canon point n shoot?

This is the one I have and it worked like a champ when I was on Whitney. My buddy has a Solio charger and was more impressed with the Goal 10.

http://www.rei.com/product/827121/goal-zero-guide-10-plus-adventure-kit-solar-charger

Just an FYI on Amazon deals they will have it on sale at 2:00 PM PST.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/goldbox/all-deals/ref=sv_gb_1

I also have the goal 10. It seemed to have the best reviews when I bought mine. I have found the best way to use it is to charge the battery pack then charge your device from that. Works great!!

I've owned a few solar chargers, from really small to the big Brunton 14 watt roll panel. So far, I have always come back to lithium batteries to power or recharge devices. They are light, can be placed in resupply packages and are rather powerful. I've bought gear to run on AA batteries wherever possible to be able to use them. The weight of the big useless Brunton panel with all the charger accessories needed to get the 12v output into batteries was a joke compared to what I now carry on a 3 week trip in Lithium batteries.

For small devices, look at the tiny Energizer Energi-To-Go chargers that are essentially a mini-USB cable to two lithium batteries - they work and are dirt cheap:

http://www.amazon.com/Energizer-Energi-To-Go-Battery-Operated-Instant/dp/B000IOKLZM

I got two of these for under $5 on Steep and Cheap last year - that's worth it for the lithium batteries included alone.

For extended trips away from the grid, or anything that needs more serious power and doesn't work with AA lithiums, I'd look into the Goal Zero Sherpa 50 coming later this summer: http://www.goalzero.com/sherpa50.html but we're talking 2 pounds here to charge a sat phone, a big camera or a small computer.

check out monoprice.com for your charging needs for the trail.

I carried a Brunton Solaris 4 this summer for almost 3 months before I replaced it for a battery pack simply because of the days getting shorter with less sun.

I found that for charging anything I had it was as good as plugging into a wall socket.

It all depends on what sort of battery you use for a camera though and how much power it has. It also depends on what your hiking style is like. Do you hike from sun up to sun down? I never did try to attach the panel to my pack and charge as I go. I would just get into camp and set it up normally with many hours of sunlight to work with.

I never did use it to charge a camera battery because I did not have a USB charger for either the NB-7L or the NB-10L that I used. Although if I had based on the Mah ratings of those batteries I could have kept them charged easy.

If you can use AA or AAA batteries for your camera and want a rechargable battery that can compete with Lithium batteries try Sanyo Eneloop.

Just noticed this thread, similar to recent discussion on solar charging in another topic on phone apps. I'm a fan of solar power, but I'm not convinced it's the optimal solution for backpacking just yet. The exception is for people spending long periods in the backcountry, and/or people with large power demands for whatever reason.

As mentioned above, it's efficient to charge a Li-Ion battery pack with the solar panel during the day, and then use the battery pack to charge your devices over night. Well, why not just carry a large enough Li-Ion battery pack that can recharge your devices a few times? The "typical" backpacker should be able to find the right size pack for less than 1/2 pound that lasts as long as a "typical" food supply, depending on gadget use. At some point, you've got to reconsider your gadget dependency. I think there's an app for that, or a 12-step program anyway.

Here's a link to a company with a variety of Li-Ion packs for sale on Amazon for less $ than a solar charger, and certainly less weight.

[url=http://www.newtrent.com]Lithium Ion Battery Packs[/url]

Thanks for the great posts. I was battling with what Solar charger to get and was convinced by SierraNevada that a Newtrent was the way to go for me.

Ordered it and got it. Looks solidly built and test charged several phones at home. Ended up with the following:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GK745L2/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

New Trent PowerPak Ultra 14000mAh Portable Dual USB Port External Battery Charger/Power Pack for Smartphones, Tablets and more. (Orange/Black)

Basically $70. I figured I can also use this for my business travels when flying cross country. A little heavy, but I look forward to taking it on climbs and testing it out.

Thanks SierraNevada.