An avid bicycle tourer and blogger sent us in this blog post of his solar charging setup and includes bit of a product review to boot. He uses a PowerFilm 50 Watt foldable panel connected to our V60 Universal Laptop Battery to charge his MacBook, Canon 60D, 2 hard drives, a laptop, an ipod, and a cell phone. As he says, “Holy s**t that’s a lot of junk to be hauling into the woods!”

Here’s pictures of the electronics with the panel open and folded up.

laptop battery and powerfilm solar panel laptop battery and powerfilm solar panel folded up

Of course, we’d like everyone to use our compact and portable 16 Watt solar panel, but the good news about the V60 is that it charges well from all solar panels in the 14-20V range. We’re looking to do a side by side comparison with some PowerFilm panels later this month.

For more great photos of a tricked out touring bike and majestic scenery, visit Just Rolling By.

For more examples and pictures, read our guide on solar chargers for bicycle touring.

4 Responses

  1. Christof

    Thanks for that quick and helpful reply!
    Also your side https://www.voltaicsystems.com/powerfilm-battery.shtml is a great help. I will go for a V60.

    One more question about a detail. It is mentioned that the V60’s peak current draw is about 1.2 A. Is this limit just for charging the battery or can the system forward more energy? My use-case would include powering a laptop at 19V with a 50w solar panel and the V60 to make sure I get a constant power supply. On sunny conditions the panel should be able to deliver more than 1.2A, can that passed through the system? After all the 19V output is rated with 3A.

    Reply
    • admin

      Hi Christof,

      We are working on the design of the battery so that it can “pass-through” the power from the panel to the output when current input exceeds 1.2A. It currently doesn’t do that though. The specs are a bit out of date, peak output is now 4.2A @ 19V. Jeff

      Reply
  2. Christof

    I like the idea and thinking of using something similar myself.
    But I’m wondering: the input spec of the V60 say 14-20 V, 1.2 A. The 50W panel should be able to supply 2A in that voltage area. So is it real okay to use the battery? What is happening with the extra power of the panel.

    Reply

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