Subes for life!

It’s a never-ending battle to keep all the gadgets and gizmos which require charginess — well — chargified. We VLers are a clever and inventive bunch, however, so we notice open power ports and make a mental note of where it is and when it’s available and how much load can it handle. My current favorite spot on a foggy day is to connect to the car charging stations at UCSC with my extension cord, and bask in the 250W current for as long as I dare*.

Most of the time, however, I get by with a portable solar panel which captures photons and converts them into free power. On a sunny day, I can be fully charged in an hour or two. Heck, even on an overcast day or with spotty clouds, it cranks along at 80-120W just fine, and that’s enough to keep my fridge running, my laptop topped off, phone at 100%, and (most importantly) my MiFi router (internets) going.

The only real problem with the portable panels is they are not built super well. I had one that lasted a couple of months and then start limping along at half the usual output. The manufacturer kindly sent a replacement and a caution to not leave it out in the rain or wind or dust or heat. The replacement was fine for a while, but I think the rain and wind and dust and heat finally killed that one off, ’cause I’m always out in the rain and wind and dust and heat and so is my freaking solar panel.

Upgraded to a new vendor and this one was bomb-proof and even survived falling off the roof of my car a couple of times. Alas, that one finally hoo-Ah’d as well.

Panel #3 was working terrific(ly) until a wire broke off the back and my steady 150W dropped to 0W. I cut the fabric away on the back of the panel, and found the black wire barely hanging on by a glop of adhesive, and the red wire completely broken off. Before the broken off thing happened, it was secured in place by a few drops of solder and insulation. Cheap wire, chintzed on the solder, flimsy piece of plastic holding it all in place … it’s days were numbered from the start.

And, unfortunately for me, that was my favorite panel to date. Large, solid solar cells on a fiberglass backing, four panels held together with flexible nylon fabric so it could all be folded up and stowed away. But, with no wire connecting, those poor photons ended up leaking all over the ground** instead of charging my batteries.

Thusly, panel #4 is in action and going strong. It is a repeat of panel #2, kindly provided by the manufacturer to test out and see if I get better performance now. And, you know what? I do! Here’s your cheat sheet for portable solar performance (200W panel, fresh from factory):

• Cloudy day: 0W
• Overcast day: 20-50W
• Light clouds: 40-100W
• Mostly sunny: 80-120W
• Full sun***: 120-160W

As you can see, even with full sun the panels will max out well below 200W, and that’s because of all the variables involved (angle of panel towards sun, temperature, leaf or bird poop on a panel, etc.), and also since the panels are only capturing a portion of the photons beaming down to Earth.

Now that I’m an experienced VLer and have all the knows about solar charginess, I think we’re good for now. But in reality, my guess is I’ll get a solid two to three months out of this new panel before I kill it off and have to start over again.

LOL. Sometimes you just gotta laugh.

And … now you know.

*The campus “safety” officers are a bunch of budding fascists, and they will ask you to leave if they catch you. Ask me how I know.

**I assume they leak out of the wire, onto the ground. I mean, where else would they go?

***”Full sun” being relative. There’s some luck and wizardry involved, as well, it seems, to get the angle of the panel just right, to have the cells cleaned off just right, to have the ambient temps just right, etc. etc. etc. So yes, even with “full sun,” sometimes the panels will only put out 60-80W and there are probably reasons but I don’t know them.