[Upcoming Release] PowerCore Solar 10000

#1

Anker is preparing to release a new solar-powered portable charger… Take a look at PowerCore Solar 10000!

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Features & details

  • Built For Adventure: This water, dust, and shock-resistant solar charger is the ideal portable power source for any situation—whether on the beach, in your backyard, or during a blackout.
  • Superior Safety: Built to withstand high temperatures for safe use in even the strongest sunlight. IP64-rated for protection against dust and water splashes from all directions.
  • High Solar-Efficiency: PowerCore uses SunPower monocrystalline panels for high solar efficiency of between 21.5-23.5%. Please Note: Solar recharging can take a long time (approximately several days) due to varying weather conditions. To recharge at a higher speed, it is recommended to use the Micro USB input port.
  • High Capacity: Equipped with a 10,000mAh capacity and dual USB ports to provide multiple charges for a wide range of devices. Charge an iPhone 11 twice, an iPhone XS more than 2 and a half times, a Samsung Galaxy S10 more than twice, or an iPad mini 5 once.
  • What You Get: PowerCore Solar 10000, lanyard, welcome guide, 18-month warranty, and our friendly customer service.

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Pricing and Availability: Anker's PowerCore Solar 10000 will be available to order from amazon.com soon. Feel free to speculate the potential cost.
Are you interested in Anker's upcoming solar-powered portable charger? Be sure to let us know with a reply!
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#2

The solar charging will be of the order of 5V ~ 300mA so will take longer time, hopefully the PowerCore does not get tooo warm (hot!!!) while placed in the sun… there will be a lot of warning and caution on the guides…

No USB-C Port… not even 1 :frowning: … and Micro-USB … whats going on … we are moving backwards (very dated old product on release)

Price I think will be $45.99 to start with, falling to $39.99 with discounts.

I wont be going for this product… better go with the PowerCore III 10000 Wireless than this Solar… with these small panels, it will never practically charge for days as mentioned, so does not really help.

May be @Ankerofficial Anker should make a hybrid — > PowerCore III 10000 Wireless with the Solar Panel & Flashlight --> Helps people going for camping Solar Charging (whatever it does bare-minimum) with flashlight and wireless charging / wired charging

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#3

Interesting product @Insider
I like the charging quote “several days via solar panel”
I don’t think I’d get much use from it being solar but can see where it fits in for those on the move and have the ability to leave in the light during the day.

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#4

In the winter?

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#5

The whole season @Chiquinho? :thinking:

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#6

If you take your LC90 torch to charge it, it could be better! :rofl:

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#7

Looks like a very stylish/rugged and potentially useful product but the lack of USB type-c baffles me.

I would grab two for power outages rolling blackouts here in California at the moment. Although the charging time isn’t ideal hopefully I’ll be able to keep my devices charged up on sun power alone. I’ll probably need the assistance of my 21watts Anker solar panel though.

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#8

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They are actually doing it?

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#9

What would you pay for this @professor? Too bad it doesn’t come with a bike mount.

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#10

Until I hear use of solid state or graphene, I will never buy a combined solar panel with battery.

The cells will cook in the heat under the long time needed to get any solar energy.

It will let you down when you need it. Not worth the effort to buy, charge or carry.

Right now I’d buy two Powercore 10000mAh PD, rather than this product for the most reliable, or buy one Powercore 20000 PD for lowest cost. You are carrying more stored energy, if one of the Powercore were to fail at least you can ration yourself to the remaining working one. This new Anker product does not show its size or weight but once that is public I’ll do the calculation of the added weight and bulk of adding another 10000 via either 2nd 10000 or a 20000 vs 10000.

This 10000 solar product will fail faster as the heat will cook the cells. The more you use it as intended, in the sun, the faster it will fail.

That’s assuming the sun is strong enough. The voltage from the electrons is what is remaining, as kinetic energy, after escaping the atom via the absorbtion of the photons. The “potential well”.

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The higher the frequency of the light, the more energy, so higher voltage, the electrons have. So high altitude more UV, summer when the light passes through less atmosphere, make a higher voltage than winter / cloudy / dawn / dusk.

The Lithium cells need a minimum of 3.7V, towards 4.2V to overcome the resistance of the cells to absorb energy.

So what happens is below a critical level of solar strength, you cannot actually charge batteries.

In general, the ideal sun is heavy in UV, humans cannot see UV, it makes our skin burn, so the solar panels work best in conditions the human will burn.

To overcome this you must use DC-DC converters to step-up the voltage in less strong sunlight, which steps down the current, that conversion is not 100% efficient so you lose some energy, and if you do this on too a small solar panel, you still end up with almost no energy getting into the cells.

Then the cells lose energy when hot, they cook. So if you leave it out a long time, the heat will just kill the cell and not produce useful energy.

It is the one product which should never exist, not under current technology.

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#11

That is interesting, I’m guessing that is why generally when you see the solar panels to charge the outdoor battery power cameras they are typically the size of a piece of paper whereas this is is a quarter of the size. Thanks for the detailed reasoning.

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#12

Yes for any given voltage and what % of time you need there is minimum size.

Folding solar panels give more area, but even so, you still have the heat, so either carry more Powercore or a larger solar panel and USB cable to a Powercore in the shade.

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So there are three main issues with this whole idea:

  • current Lithium cell technology does not like heat above room temperature, so the cells won’t like being in the sun for a long time.
  • the small solar panels are necessarily requiring a long time in the sun, then see the above.
  • the small solar panels require exceptionally good sunlight to even function at all, as there is a minimum voltage required to recharge Lithium cells, so the solar panel is very easily dead weight, it’s not the case a 1/5th smaller panel takes 5x longer, it is also less useful in marginal conditions and can easily find itself not able to work at all.

You can get around this via:

  • a bigger solar panel
  • a cable from where the solar panel is in in the sun, to the Lithium cells kept in a cooler shaded spot. That shaded spot must not stuck right onto the solar panel as via conduction the underneath of the solar panel is hot, so hence a cable is a mandatory minimum.

So a setup like this is workable from a technology perspective, big panel, battery in shade.

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But from a weight cost/benefit perspective, a big solar panel is more expensive than 20Ah Powercore, and even if the solar panel is big, and the Powercore is shaded, you still need sunshine which may not occur, so I’d always assume Powercore is the answer, two of them, or a bigger one, than solar, unless the person is going into a known sunny area, then it would work but then I’d be suggesting still a bigger panel to work better.

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#13

Although I like the color combo and look of the unit, I’m not totally convinced that it’s any better then just having a regular power bank. As stated, it’s very slow to charge up. And I don’t know how comfortable I would be, letting it sit in the sun. I’ve only tried one solar charger/power bank combo, and it was a total fail. Within half an hour of it sitting on my dashboard on our road trip home from Utah, the casing cracked and the battery swelled. Then it totally stopped doing anything. That was a total waste of money. I agree with a lot of you about it not having USB-C capabilities. With all the new gadgets out there moving onto USB-C charging, this is taking a step back.

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#14

Wish we could start boosting your bucks earn rates for all the free lessons you give to us members.

1 Like
#15

I doubt it, I’m criticising their products and saying to not buy. This community is funded by sales.

But I’m not an Anker employee so I just say as close to truth as I can.

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#16

Yeah but you are still recommending some of their products and even with the criticisms I’m sure that not everyone reads the full thread of comments and may still purchase. So either way you are helping.

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#17

Exactly.

I don’t understand why Anker, who prides itself on customer service, timeliness of warranty resolution, reliable products, is going to sell a product which will hurt them quickly as soon as owners use it as intended.

If they are adamant to making a combo solar + battery, I’d:

  • use folding panels to make it larger
  • make it prop up so tilt to the sun and make the Powercore rest on the ground so it’s in shade away from heat.
  • the issue with folding solar panels is they flop and tricky to get all the panels pointed at the sun, so some smarts around making it rigid, possibly use the Lithium cells as some kind of prop / structure, but still shaded and cooler.

That’s my default recommendation, just carry more / larger Powercore instead. There is a specific type of trip where solar makes sense but it’s going to be niche, few reading this would fall into that niche. It’s largely a basecamp type trip where you just prop the panel up facing south and leave it a few hours with some large Powercore attached. If you were not basecamping then you’d be carrying the weight all day every day and you’d have to angle it to the sun as you moved around and the sun moved around which is very awkward.

I tried solar for about a decade, once Lithium Ion batteries got reliable and cost-effective, I dumped solar. I tried it again 2 years ago, solar was not consistent enough, better to carry a Powercore and now a small Nano to make use of any wall power you may pass, that’s so small and light now also it makes a Nano more practical than solar.

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#18

I feel the same way with going with the PowerCore III 10000 Wireless over this. I think it would take some reviews from others on how productive the solar charging is to even take a chance with the PowerCore Solar. I wonder what the limits will be on the temperature that you are able to leave it outside to get a charge. Plus, so you don’t fry you hand with how hot it gets.

That would be super interesting if they could do the wired/wireless/solar along with flashlight. I definitely see that hitting a bunch of needs for campers.

#19

That is my concerns as well!

The best testing for this device would be drain the powerbank to Zero level and charge it to 100% only by Solar Charging :rofl:

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#20

You just doubled the “we love testing” entrants for this.

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