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Help Solar charger

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lesrsz28

Lurker
Has anyone tried a solar charger on their 7 yet? I get my 7 tomorrow and will be taking it on a 8 day backpacking trip.
 
The N7 doesn't care where it gets power from, the real question is what the output is on the charger.

If it's substantially under 1A, it's going to charge pretty slowly. May not matter if you can put the charger on your pack and let it charge all day, but if it's going to get a lot of use, you might have a hard time keeping up with a 500 mA charger.
 
My charger charges its battery than it will use the battery to charge the 7 do not plan on getting heavy use out of the 7, no gps tracking just going to use it for maps/reading
 
Jay Aristide said:
OK... This thread is quickly becoming LOLable... The n7 weighs less than a pound...
Completely negligible, IMO
Click to expand...

Might it be that you have never done real backpacking? That is, dozens of miles over hard terrain?

A pound is a large chunk of weight, when you're talking about adding it to your back and then multiplying it by all those miles and steep grades... All I'm saying is you seriously consider something before putting it in your pack. If that pound isn't serving a necessary purpose, you leave it out.
 
Fair enough. If you do even a decent amount of reading, though, it really is a no-brainer.. Three-hundred books totaling less than a pound, or one book that weighs about a pound?
 
Jay Aristide said:
Fair enough. If you do even a decent amount of reading, though, it really is a no-brainer.. Three-hundred books totaling less than a pound, or one book that weighs about a pound?
Click to expand...

Oh, I completely agree... but in that case, I'd argue the N7 is the wrong choice. Get an e-Ink Kindle/Nook, with a month's worth of battery life, and suddenly you have a device that's even lighter and more durable than the N7, without the hassles of needing a power source.

I will be bringing my new Kindle on my next hiking trip. I love my N7, but you can't beat a month of battery on a single charge!
 
binary visions said:
Jay Aristide said:
Fair enough. If you do even a decent amount of reading, though, it really is a no-brainer.. Three-hundred books totaling less than a pound, or one book that weighs about a pound?
Click to expand...
Oh, I completely agree... but in that case, I'd argue the N7 is the wrong choice. Get an e-Ink Kindle/Nook, with a month's worth of battery life, and suddenly you have a device that's even lighter and more durable than the N7, without the hassles of needing a power source.

I will be bringing my new Kindle on my next hiking trip. I love my N7, but you can't beat a month of battery on a single charge!
Click to expand...
Bingo.
 
Ok ther are lots of book readers but I just have this N7. So i have tried my charger twice but it looks like it will not be good for the N7 it will give me the indication that it is charging but after it has finished passing the power to the N7 I have lost 5% of the starting point! I will have to look at a diffrent charger. I wonder if the pins are the same on the units?
 
OK here is all my solor charger will do for me I tested the N7 with the charger pluged in and running a game for 1 hr battery dropped 2.5% same game with out the charger the N7 dropped 9%. This charger only outputs 400mah I think.
 
Get a larger 12-15 watt solar panel, a 12 volt lithium battery and a high output usb 12 volt power adapter and you should be good to go. Play the N7 in the lowest possible light, dim as the screen will get, in airplane mode and you should get plenty of time per charge out of it. You can maybe skip the battery if you can keep the solar panel working in the sunlight while connected to the 12 volt adapter.
 
lesrs2 said:
OK here is all my solor charger will do for me I tested the N7 with the charger pluged in and running a game for 1 hr battery dropped 2.5% same game with out the charger the N7 dropped 9%. This charger only outputs 400mah I think.
Click to expand...

The numbers will vary a lot depending on what you're doing, but El Goog estimates 9 hours of video playback out of their 4236 mAh battery.

If you do that math, you arrive at a usage of roughly 471 mA per hour during video playback. That means your 400 mAh charger won't keep it charged. Of course, gaming is going to cut your battery life shorter than 9.5 hours, because it is engaging the GPU harder, so it's draining slightly faster than that.

Thinking out loud: 2.5% in 1 hour means you dropped 106 mA... so your N7, while you were playing the game, was draining a bit more than 500 mAh.

themoreyouknow.jpg
 
I looked at the Opteka BP-sc4000 and picked one up but I am not convinced that it will actually increase the amount into the N7 it will have a higher output but I have not even been able to get the battery to increase while attempting to charge of my computer.
 
Im also interested in a Nexus7 solar charger. I was looking at the Joos but then I came across the *NEW* SunTactics sCharger-12. No battery so it's light weight and will directly charge the device instead of waiting for an internal battery to charge and then charging up the device. If you really want an external USB battery then the S-12 will charge that as well if your external battery accepts power input from the USB connector.

www.suntactics.com/tablet-ipad-solar-charger.html

They also make a smaller S-5 BUT I want to deal with reality (Short days in winter, clouds, tree cover, etc) so I really would not want anything under powered especially when charging up a Tablet, a Tablet/Phone combo or a huge external USB battery. I tried charging up the Nexus7 with a 1A@5VDC plug-in-the-wall phone charger but it was really disappointing. Took forever. You really need 2A@5VDC to get the job done fast while the sun is up.

www.suntactics.com/support.html

Read the manual if interested. It has info on the differences between the two USB ports for the sCharger-12.

I put in an order for one so I will let you guys know how well it works when I it shows up sometime next week.

Video compare between Joos and S-5
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCM1xdzEX7w
 
I received my Opteka BP-sc4000 actually 2 of them (cheap), charged them up and at 6:30 this morning set Backcountry Nav to make a track and hooked up the Opteka. Used the nexus 7 for reading during lunch and breaks at 3:00 the indicator bar had just hit 1 bar. After getting home at 5:30 checked how my track recorded and than checked my battery status and it was at 100% full! I thing that with 2 of these I should be ok for my 8 day backpacking trip.
 
Following up from my earlier post. I struck out with the SunTactics sCharger-12.

Plugged it in to the Nexus 7 in full sun and nothing happens. Even with the special charging cable that shorts pins 2/3 the sCharger-12 at best charges very very slowly.
The good news is that I learned more about USB charging than I ever want to know and how freaky the proprietary Apple USB charging that uses f'd up resistances/voltage (typically 2.1 and 2.7 volts DC) on pins 2 and 3 to signal to the iDevice to charge and how much to charge.

For kicks read: MintyBoost - The mysteries of Apple device charging

Its a real eye opener on how Apple makes a crap load of money on even things like USB chargers. For the Nexus 7 charger it seems that all that needs to happen is for the tablet to see pins 2 and 3 shorted out (signaling to the tablet that it is plugged into an AC charger not a USB computer port), enough amps (2amps please) and volts to go into fast AC charge mode. ... simple. I love it.

Im waiting for the iPhone 5 mini-dock port. Rumor is that all accessories will be apple licensed and enforced by having a chip in it. The walled garden (aka iPrison) will then be complete. Im gonna laugh so hard if that is confirmed.

Right now in place of the solar charger I am rocking a Trent IMP70D. It charges my GNex+Nex7 at the same time really fast And the sun doesn't have to be shining. :)
 
OK I will give you an update with the N7 and Opteka BP-sc4000 chargers. I pluged in the first charger and set up the N7 to record a tract and started out on the first leg of our trip 10 hr of walking later checked battery. First battery in the N7 was at 100% and the charger was at 1 bar! prettey good. I was able to use the charger battery to read that night. I charged the battery durring the next day to 3 bars and used it to read again. Long story short I was able to do 8 day hike with these 2 chargers and when I got home the N7 was still at 100% battery!
 
I was looking for a cheap and lightweight solar charger to use when backpacking, where weight is important. So, I bought the Opteka Bp-SC4000 even though it was not given good reviews at Amazon.com.

I charged it up and hooked it up to my Nexus 7 and the charge went from 30% to 70%. The specifications indicate it should charge it up 100%. Weather has been cloudy so don't know if it charges from the sun well. Saw other chargers for ~$60 at Amazon, so I guess I'll try one of them next.
 
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