Iphone buzzes with Powerport solar charger

[tesh11]

Just bought the Powerport solar charger. set it out & started charging. I plugged in my iPhone 7 & it’s charging, but about every 10 seconds I get a buzz buzz sound from the phone. Very annoying. It appears as the little battery on the iPhone goes green & then black. The percentage of battery has also gone down. What’s up?

[john_bbc2005]

how about the battery icon or sign, does it show a charging status?

[Tank]

I posted this in another thread, ha e a read…

Portable Solar Panel

I copied this from another site that someone mentioned this happening "Solar panel output power fluctuations can also cause a phones’ screen to fluctuate on and off. This can happen if you are in motion with the solar panel like walking under trees. The phone sees this as a power drop too. The phone screen will turn off and on in succession which causes power drain. Another words, when the phones' screen toggles off and on as you are walking under shadows, the power drain happens. A workaround…

[professor]

iPhone and solar don’t get along. Consider using a powercore.

[ndalby]

Chances are the solar panel is not getting enough sun to ensure a constant power flow to the iPhone (ideally 1.3A or above).

I recently tested the Solar Lite with an iPhone using a meter; in grey/cloudy conditions I couldn’t get above 0.01A but in direct sunlight, on a not so warm day I will add, got me to around 0.95-1.05A and could at least charge my iPhone but still with drops. Charging a PowerCore Slim was more stable but does add another step into equation for charging your phone.

[professor]

The 14W lite is a false saving, get the 21W if you’re paying for it (I know you won your 14W).

https://diglloyd.com/articles/power/Anker-PowerPortSolarLite.html

Voltage drops with weaker sun but the DC-DC has to attempt to hold nearer to 5V so it forces the current to drop, so you more commonly have a useless solar panel if small.

This video shows the problem well

[pickering.drew]

Your charging cable may be broken or frayed. If this is the case contact anker marketing for help and they might send you a replacement.

[ndalby]

That’s one of three different YouTube video’s I watched when I was testing the Solar Lite with my meter to see how it ranked with those in more sunny climates (or were using in the summer). The majority of the panels use will be in summer (when on holiday) so hopefully I might get better results then, might do a now and X months later review.

For something that essentially cost me nothing (except some time and posts), I’m not gonna complain

[professor]

It’s better to win the 21W then got power in more situations.

I have the Anker 21W, two Choetech 19W and two ZeroLemon batteries with solar. The Anker 21W performs well.

[pickering.drew]

to me the solar chargers are more a waste of money when compared with a less expensive power bank.

[professor]

Agreed, in general, but not always.

If it is short trip then you’re correct, the weight and volume of solar is better replaced with an added or bigger battery.

On longer trips it begins to shift to solar.

A 21W solar panel in good conditions make about 50Wh per day of energy. That is about the same as a 13000mAh battery. For most a 13000mAh battery is about 2-5 days of energy needs. So solar is making 2-5 days of energy, so once you cross over into >2-5 days then it becomes useful. Accept that is rarer need.

Also in home power outage emergency situations where weight is not the factor, solar can be cheaper than alternatives.

In my home I have two 20W solar panels, that is enough to keep a family of 4 with torches working through a long power outage “indefinately” (*)

(*) your cellphone signal disappears anyway as the cell towers run out of power from their UPS so you’re mostly needing to last a few days for local issues like storms with lots of downed power and the cellular service is fixed first and home power fixed 2nd.