Has anyone ever used solar chargers?

[dgtlfuse]

Does it make sense to buy one for our 6 month trip to India - Tibet and also Everest base camp. We will be going on few long treks and have a lot of electronic equipment with us. We are wondering now if we should get one of these chargers in particular the Brunton Solar Roll 14 charger (14W) or should we just get extra batteries and hope that it would be enough? What if we dont find any source of power supply around the area? Thanks so much in advance.

 

[Frodo]

Hello dg,

6 months of trekking in India and Tibet? That is awesome! Great to hear that you are just working out the details. Should be quite the adventure!

For a 6 month trip, I would go with the Brunton 14W solar batt charger. It weighs just slightly more than a pound, and that does not add up to very many extra batteries. The cost however, is probably more than you would use in extra batteries on a 6 month trip. So, I would weigh cost vs battery weight, and in your case it seems well worth it.

I climbed Denali last June, and we looked into bringing a solar charger. Due to our short time (3 weeks), we went with extra batteries (about 8 lbs worth for a CB Radio, satalite phone, and (2) two-way Motorolla's. Your situation is much different...

Enjoy your trip (next spring?), and keep us posted if you can.