(DE) 18/09/2021 : Befristetes Angebot : PowerSolar 24W
Very interesting find, anybody here have, that you know of / heard?
There is an old thread with a discussion about this panel.
May be @Tank, @Shenoy or @professor have such ones.
I recall something from @professor about it not quite being sufficient, and that small powerbanks were a slightly better option.
Otherwise, not much. Guess if there isn’t much sun, it wouldn’t help much.
Exactly!
We have a solar system on the roof. (warm water)
Works perfectly in summer.
But in winter - > no sun, no warm water, no support for the heating system.
The solution would be to bury a huge tank in 10 m depth and to “store” the hot water from summer to use in winter.
And this tank must be perfectly isolated.
Makes no sense at all.
I always wondered how well those solar panels chargers were. I am in an area as @TheSnarkyOne has stated where it would not be of much use. The hills of WV. Any camping would have plenty of hills in it and the amount of charging would be limited at most.
Indeed in sunny places it could work.
Using when camping (tent).
If you got a car there is really no reasonable use.
The only perfect user who comes in mind is our @professor 
Biking and hiking around somewhere in the nowhere!
Minimal luggage. Only a rucksack.
Yes yes I purchased this when it was on sale here for 45 bucks. I took it to the beach and with the sun just rising and my phone at 30% it only took about 40 minutes to bring my phone to a full charge. So with good sunlight it works and charges great. I had my phone, my sons phone, and my wife’s 10k battery pack all plugged in.
I know you got such one Rob.
Is there anything you dont own? 
Haha I only purchased it because it was such a low price and I never seen it that low before. But yea my wife and son was like what the heck, why do you even need that.
I can’t help it if I like my gadgets.
If we all would really care about if there is a “need” of the things we own and store,
we would ending up to be really purists and/or minimalists.
What does a civilized human being really need?
I would say a bed, a table, a chair and may be a wardrobe. 
There’s threads about this particular model having design/build issues, may have been resolved.
But on paper if it works then should be perfectly adequate to keep a phone going indefinitvely.
The math works out as follows:
- 24W is the theoretical of the physical panels and is unobtainable, it takes the open gate voltage times the max current which is closed gate. That’s a kind of lie. Half it in reality, so in this case 12W.
- You’d get 12W in good conditions, so seeing the sun and the panel angled correctly. On a sunny day you’d easily get 8 hours if you kept moving it to track the sun. So in reality you’d probably only point it for 2 hours, when you’re next to it.
- Hence 12W x 2 hours = 24Wh/day.
- A typical phone is 3.7V x 4Ah = 13Wh.
- As 13 is less than 24 you see a phone will be easy to keep charged.
- However as you will get sunnier days and cloudy/rain days, as a typical phone won’t last more than 1-2 days it makes more sense to store solar energy accumulating in good sunny days and use that stored energy through cloudy/rain days, but at a cost.
- If you charge Powercore to then charge a phone, you lose around 1/3rd of the energy, but even so 2/3rds of 24Wh is still 14W which is still enough to recharge a phone.
To do more than keep a phone going can be done but just takes attention to detail. You’d recharge your phone first then recharge a Powercore.
Personally, I’ve stopped using solar for travel as I found I passed a wall socket often enough to just carry a Powercore instead, the weight+bulk of solar really need you to be more than a week away from a wall socket to bother. Very few people do that. So very few need solar.
As solar tends to want to store energy in a Powercore, and a solar panel is similar weight to a Powercore, effectively you’re best carrying two Powercore 20000 to last a week or more, if much more than that then carry one 20000 and solar panel.
I have settled on one 20000 PD and a Nano for my off-grid trips, and just plug into the wall every opportunity and it keeps me going indefinitively.
I won an Anker 21W panel and bought two Choetech 24W panels, I gave one of the Choetech away so now have the Anker 21W and Choetech 24W. If the “zombie” apocolypse did happen I’d use both panels on sunny days to keep the many Powercore I have charged and then use them to keep phones going, and recharge my Bolder flashlights going. Along with camping stoves and wood burning, I’d last a while. Not months but easily weeks.
You’re best with photovoltaic roof solar panels, and local battery storage, and feed excess power back into the grid in sunny days and draw from the grid on less sunny days once battery depleted. Net overall in a year you’re probably ending up cost-neutral, i.e. free energy.
However your first priority should always to reduce demand, then address supply. So insulate home, use low power appliances, etc. Once that is done then solar investment to then meet your (now lower) needs.
Insulating an old house is expensive and makes no sense,
if you still use the old windows.
And never forget the roof truss.
Calculating : Costs for such a restoration (amortization period) > 30 years!
Its all fine with a new so called “Passivhaus”.
But who can afford such one?
When an old house was built you’d have the family huddled around a coal fire, and go to bed wearing pyjamas and dressing gown, and sometimes a hot water bottle.
Now people are wearing regular clothes and spending their time looking at a phone screen in their bedroom all day.
Result: people want to heat a whole house when before their didn’t.
Change yourself works far better than complaining others need to do something.
And so everything is explained, but not necessarily understood by those who think the problems are caused by others.
So true!!!
I see the neighbors wearing summer clothes in winter when moving around in their modern houses.
We cant, we have to fire the tile stove,
But we never catch any cold!
Hardened!
btw:
I have seen such special fireplaces in old portuguese houses.
(Called lareia)
The whole family could sit in there.
This is a foto from a restored one.
I would like to have such one.
Great place for conversations!