What smaller solar panels are you using when you go portable with your HF rigs?

I see Renogy sells a rigid 10 Watt unit measuring 10.6" x 13.4" x 1.0". Price is $35 for about .6 amp and weighs 2.65 lbs., looking at the picture it appears to be a 32-cell unit, so open circuit voltage is about 21.6 V DC. Their next size panel up is 50 Watt at 22.9" x 20" at about 2.7 amps, but likely too big for packing.

Thanks

Here's the one I'm currently using. Allpowers 60 watt folding panel. It's pretty small and lightweight all things considering.

Solar Panel: Link to Amazon

As a rough rule of thumb it's not a bad idea to get a panel with a wattage that is double what you think you'll need. If you get some minor cloud cover, or your setup angle isn't perfect you tend to lose a lot of efficiency. I also sized my panel so that it can run my radio, and charge another battery simultaneously. I also wanted a panel with enough output that I can charge my batteries in just a few hours so I don't have to leave everything sitting out all day long. If you have to pick up and move you may not have the luxury to have your panel set up and charging for extended periods.

I couple my panel to this battery: Battery: Link to Amazon




It has enough capacity to run my 10 watt Lab599 TX-500 in receive only for ~105 hours, or ~36 hours with 50% SSB duty cycle (my voice would give out before my battery would). Those numbers are based on a 75% discharge level.

With the above panel and battery, under good conditions, I should be able to fully charge the battery in less than 4 hours.

The battery pack also has outputs for USB-C and laptop connectors, so if needed I can run my radio, laptop, and charge my phone all at the same time.

The beauty of this this system is the battery has a built in charge controller, so I can plug my solar panel directly into the battery without a bunch of extraneous hardware and wires to facilitate charging.

While the entire package is reasonably small and light, I would probably not want to take this on a multiday backpacking trip at 12,000ft - however, it is no problem at all to pack this into my backpack and walk a few miles and operate from a fixed location for an indefinite amount of time.

Years ago I tried a Goal Zero 7 watt, and then 15 watt solar panel to keep my FT-817 batteries charged, and between the cloud/angle losses, power hungry radio, and small size of the panels it was a losing battle. It would have been fine to operate on a very tight comms plan (check in once an hour for 5 minutes or something) with lots of downtime for charging, but it never would have worked if I needed to operate the radio overnight or for longer periods of time. For a lighter weight setup for SOTA or something I would probably get a 25-50 watt panel, and a small 3s 18650 battery pack. That would let me operate continuously throughout the day, and then have enough battery to run for a few hours at night.

As with all things - your mileage might vary...

100w foldable. Folds down into about the size of a iPad and probably 1.5" thick. I honestly don't know the brand. It's probably a Chinese special. I got it at a hamfest last year.

Thank you for the replies and the reminder to not skimp on overall capacity. As stated, in most real-world circumstances, obtaining sufficient solar exposure would likely be a luxury and difficult to obtain.

I need to think about this...

Thanks for the post, I just ordered one of those battery packs. I'll use it to power a car charger to recharge portable batteries. My typical backcountry comms needs are satisfied by a pair of UHF P25 portables and an N9TAX antenna.

I have a Jackery 240Wh battery but its form factor makes throwing it in a pack impractical, same goes for the Jackery solar panels. For what it's worth, a 60W panel and that 240Wh battery powered a UHF base (running 15W), about three portables, and several cell phones for a week and could have gone indefinitely. We used that setup outside Moab last summer and could hardly have been happier with it.

Thanks !!

I just bought both the solar panel and the battery bank.
The world has sure changed alot since the days of taking Yuasa SLA 12v 7ah and wiring up in parallel, popping into an ammo can, adding many fuses LOL and using a crane to move.  

Question for the wizards--->   When these smaller lithium-ion or LifePO4 battery banks advertise "Mah" or "watts", at what voltage is that really measured?
In other words..  at 12vdc 50ah would sure be amazing coming in such a small housing.  At 5vdc 50ah would be less than 1/2 the capacity of 50ah at 12vdc.
Did I word that correctly?

and...  How accurate are the specs?   Are they inflated or accurate?

Thank you !!

BTW:  I have not posted on ARFCOM in years (actually.. close to decades LOL).   I am really please that the whole radio comm forum is here.
DOES ANYONE THINK DUPLEXER TUNING SERVICES (for free for 2a / ARFCOM folk , of course) WOULD BE SOMETHING I SHOULD BOTHER POSTING?
Even though I haven't been on the air in years, I still have test gear sitting idle on my bench and remember how hard and costly it was when I put my first UHF repeater on the air.

Thanks..

10 years ago with a couple of SLAs and a Harbor Freight solar panel I ran a week long SE station at Camp Perry.

The rig was my PRC 320 which is a 30 watt rig.

I ordered and received a couple of these Renogy 30 Watt panels. Definitely not small and not as light as many examples shown by others, but they do work. I wouldn't want to hike with one or two of these for 50 miles, but it is an option.

30 Watt glass panel

PowerFilm is the king of portable solar.

Yeah, I will pass on the 850.00 60w panel.

Couple of the upper management folks at powerfilm are hams, they used to have a good size booth at Dayton. They sold a lot of DIY panel sections if people wanted to put stuff together at a cheaper price. I bought some DIY panels but haven't ever put them together into something functional, too much analysis paralysis in trying to figure out how to put something together.

Two of the 28W folding Bioenno because I can't afford Powerfilm.  They can be easily chained together.  One panel in full sun pulls an amp which is what the 891 pulls while in RX, so it works out well.  I would HIGHLY recommend a PowerMini2 from Buddipole for a solar portable setup.

https://www.bioennopower.com/products/28-watt-foldable-solar-panel

https://www.bioennopower.com/products/28-watt-foldable-solar-panel

I pulled out the powerfilm sections I have out of curiosity. Seems like they aren't very... productive... compared to some of the other stuff that is posted. I don't know if they're not that good, or it's inherent in the technology they are using, or their specs are conservative or what.

I have several small panel sections that are about the size of a bumper sticker which are listed as nominal 15v, at 50mA. Six of them are about the right size to fit on both front and back of a three-ring binder for example... unless my math is wrong that would only be 4.5 watts. 40 sections which would be a substantial amount of real estate would be 30 watts. Maybe I need to put some together and try them.

Just got a Renogy 200 watt suitcase to take up to camp for radio and charging various devices. Need to look into a folding backpackable panel now.

I too am looking for a folding or rolled up solar panel. I would like 100 watts  but they are a bit big. I would like it folded to no more than 14.5 x 10.5 inches and no more than 2 inches thick to fit in the Apache 3800 Go Box I am currently making. It could go on the outside I guess, but would like everything inside it, if possible. My radio is 500 ma receive and 1.5 amps transmit 5 watts, more at 10 watts but have not measured it yet and that would be just if I needed it.

The Bioenno 28 watt would fit nicely, but not sure if 28 watts is enough, max current in full sun is 1.5 amps, so it could charge at the rate of 1 amp  on receive and for a 12 ahr battery, that means it will take 12 hrs to charge. The 40 watt panel is 2.2 amps means a 7 hour full sun charge time, but I don't think it will fit for what i want to due because it is 2.2 inches thick. But right now even 28 watts is better than zero watts.

If anyone is going to Hamvention, if Powerfilm is there I would take a look at what they have.

I would really like to get a hold of some of their "ultra high efficiency" panel sections. Those look like the answer to portable solar, probably at a high cost though. They used to offer some more reasonable deals on DIY panel sections at Dayton.

I was there four years ago and they had powerfilm panels approximately half off.  I got a good deal on their 60 watt panel in Tri desert.

Quick update for this thread: A couple weeks ago I was on a work trip and brought my TX-500 and the 72ah battery (see my post above). I completed 8 POTA activations (30min-1hr each), and charged my phone a couple times off of the battery over 5 days. The status lights on the battery indicated 50% charge remaining. I set the battery and 60 watt solar panel outside this morning and in less than 5hrs had a full charge on the battery. Conditions this morning were mostly cloudy with a couple of light rain showers.

This was a good test that verified the kit is working correctly and can power my field radios indefinitely even with less than ideal sunlight and conditions.

Math says that can’t be a 72aH battery.

They use the old gimmick of using the 1S rating of the battery and rounding up (266 watt hours / 3.7v = 71.89  amp hours).

Figure in the voltage conversion loss and I'm using the 12v output it's probably only about 20-ish amp hours?

For a QRP radio though that's a lot of juice

I’m glad that it works for you and is a cool setup. Probably more like 5 of you tested it just based on size.

that looks really nice

Saw that and was going to share today. Not sure if I should pull the trigger or if junk.