Hi all,
I need some help from you techy guys.
I still have a goalzero Boulder 50 and 30 solar Panel.
Do you know how will I be able to recharge the Anker Powerhouse with this 2 solar Panels?
The Goalzero’s DC cables are 8mm, what adapter do you advice me? 
Many thanks in advance for helping. 
I don’t own either but I can make a stab. I use these Amazon review and questions.
In descending order of most important 1st.
From the comments, if you take the PSU supplied of the Powerhouse you see a 16V-17V input.
Looking a the GoalZero Boulder 50 specs:
I see an open circuit voltage of 18V-20V. However a closed circuit voltage is often lower, so its already showing borderline acceptability. However 18-20 > 16-17 so it passes that check.
From the review and Anker’s replies here
I see “is a round cable with below tip size: 7.5mm4.8mm0.7mm”
How does that compare with “8mm” ? It is not strictly the same right? Might fit, might not. But 7.5 != 8 therefore its got signs of not working.
So then let’s do the math. 50W so over a sunny day if you just pointed the Goalzero tilted to the latitude and season to be average at the sun then you’d get about half the daylight hours, so say 6 hours equivalent in good conditions. 6x50 = 300Wh. The Powerhouse is 434Wh so you’re looking at about 3/4ths of a full recharge in a good day.
The caveats would be: would the pin work? If in less than ideal situations what happens, does the voltage drop? If so how less than perfect is it before it drops so low it stops charging? You could in cloudy conditions get no power whatsoever all day.
To help solve this puzzle, do you own a meter which can measure voltage? Do you have anything (not Powerhouse) which can act as a closed circuit drain? Connect all 3 items and measure, what is the voltage in different conditions? If its >16V you’re in with a reasonable chance. Might need to make up a special adapter. The Amazon reviews show solar panels with adapter kits for the pin shape.
I don’t see a regulator mentioned in the Boulder specs, this Q&A implies none.
What a regulator would do is step down amp and up volt to maintain a minimum voltage, that would make the panel less useless in less than perfect situations. So if you find you’re getting <16V then consider some kind of regulator. Also if the Boulder were to get >17V unregulated, it risks burning the Powerhouse (its upper tolerance I do not know but its a warning).
In the Anker solar panels there is a regulator to output 4.2V-5.1V in the range to be above minimum for USB standards, so you’d probably need equivalent for the Powerhouse minimum input if the Boulder’s voltage varies too easily <16V or >17V.
Hi Nigelhealy,
You are GREAT!!
Thank you so Much for your elaborated help.
Now I should do some maths and figure out the specs of the boulder 50 and see if has some kind of regulator.
Thank you again for your appreciated help.
hope it helped 
Which country you in? Is the Powerhouse actually available in your country? It has limited country availability, because it is so big it cannot be put on a flight. It is sold in USA where I am now, it it was discounted last week to $330 and now is not available.
Hi Nigelhealy,
Currently I’m in Switzerland and I bought the Anker Powerhouse in the US at Amazon via a forwarding agent
329.99US$ it’s actually the price I paid for it plus shipping to Europe.
This Weekend if it will be sunny I will try to charge it with the Goalzero Boulder.
Thank you agai
Have a nice day.
Cool. I’m curious if you have a meter. I don’t know GoalZero particularly as a brand but a quick check of their reviews implies they don’t exaggerate claims (unlike Anker, Aukey, Ravpower…) so that presents the problem of “too much voltage”. There is a theoretical risk if you did happen to get a port connection to work that you could cause the $330 Powerhouse to be permanently damaged beyond warranty if you connected an unregulated GoalZero Boulder 50, when it was perfect conditions. So sunny, cooler, at altitude.
What i do: I shrink my needs to fit, I use a $99 phone with a $99 tablet with a $20 battery with a $43 solar panel and use a $15 USB meter to debug everything.
You can always buy a DC-DC converter to make it the required voltage. Example:
https://www.amazon.com/DROK-Numerical-Switching-Regulator-Adjustable/dp/B01CE5P33M?th=1
I don’t own that model but I know the principals. You’d set it to say 16V output and as the sunshine varies the current would vary but not the voltage.
There is a video review of the Powerhouse, I feel this one is particularly fair.
For me the biggest gripe is the idea of portable and AC output. All that AC output would do is just make DC to whatever is the device’s requirment, example is a laptop AC typically makes 19V. As AC-DC conversion is less efficient than DC-DC conversion you’d be better just making DC directly from DC and then all of that expensive $330 434Wh is more efficiently used for your devices. You just need the right shaped connectors, to which a universal set of plugs would likely do for almost everything.
if Anker wanted to get clever they could make a future Powerhouse which had diallable DC output, you set the voltage and supplied with a universal adapter kit. An example of more intelligent future version Powerhouse would be from the Omnicharge, it takes a wide range of DC input and produces a wide range of DC output, hence its all DC-DC to make the 4.2V to charge the Powerhouse cells, stepping down from whatever is the input voltage, and then DC-DC step-up to whatever you have dialled for output. You could then connect it to ANY solar panel and power practically ANY device.
Because DC-AC-DC is such an inefficient idea, it makes no sense in a portable form factor in my mind, therefore I expect Anker could easily make a much better Powerhouse, which would work better with solar and laptops.
Even if Anker made a more intelligent future Powerhouse, I’m really not sure I’d buy it, because if I’m moving I travel light and I’d spend the money instead on portable devices which can be charged off lower cost and physically smaller options.
