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0 just getting your feet wet:




If you're not ready to start running your station off solar, you can get a taste of solar power by getting one
of the many "solar wallets" available online. They will be in a fanfold package that unfolds to expose from 3
to 9 panels, and usually has a pouch on the end containing a small USB converter that you can plug your phone
into to charge it up on solar power.

There's a multitude of "cheap garbage" solar on the market that you should avoid. Anything that has less than
about 2 square feet of panel area is simply not worth your time. It won't provide enough power to reliably
charge your phone, and will just be a waste of money. Listings change so often it's difficult for me to give
you a link to anything that will still be there by the time you read this, so you'll just have to look around.
If you get a larger wallet, in the future you might want to try to get a little solar controller for it and
patch it into your battery to see if you can get a bit of a boost out of it. It won't be much, but it's a
nice exercise in preparation for getting more involved with solar. Most of the larger kits have a direct
panel connection you can connect to a little solar controller. (those also change daily and are hard to
bookmark) You might want to pick up some medium gauge wire to run over to your panels leaning up against a
nearby tree in the sun. (right by the shelter there's usually too much shade)

You can pick up a decent 16-25w solar wallets for between $40 and $65. The bigger ones (nine panel 60w) are
over $100. They don't have a very good watts-per-dollar value, but that's to be expected at entry-level.

I've had good luck with Suaoki brand wallets, they're useful, are rated honestly, and priced reasonably.


16ga stranded twin-lead ($11 at Amazon)

charging 12v batteries with solar wallets

cheap little PWM conrtoller ($3 at eBay)

small solar wallets (in portable packages)


16 gauge stranded twin-lead :



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last updated 06/05/2024 at 21:32:10 by make_www_index.command version 2024.05.25.A