Solar chargers....

[metalheart]

A colleague at work is leaving work within the month obvstentively to go cycling for a year and will be heading through some pretty desolate countries.

Apparently she could do with a solar PV charger.

Can anybody recommend a decent one. There’s knocking on twenty of us in the team, we surely can afford to buy one

[rich.mike]

I have not personally used one, but every long term tourer I have talked to hasn’t had much luck. I’d highly recommend a dynohub and USB adaptor. I have used one for many long tours. This combined with a power bank will get you through even the most desolate areas!

[Asposium]

I have two Goal Zero Nomad 14 plus solar panels (they can be linked together) that I used when hiking in Iceland.
Whilst they work okay and did provide some useful charging as with many of these electrical generation systems they can be a little disappointing.
At home I have a Goal Zero Yeti 400 that has a MPPT solar controller and a power meter, in testing last year the two panels never achieved anywhere near 28W even when mounted at optimum angle and full sun.
On the move, whether on a bike or rucksack, they would be in even less ideal conditions.
Not to say they don’t have a use, and I would certainly take it expecting a basecamp type situation.

Edit.
Suppose the usefulness of a solar panel will depend on where your friend is going (somewhere sunny?) and whether she will have static days (such that the solar panel can be orientated toward the sun).
If somewhere unsunny and/or the panel is on the bike in shade then it could be bl00dy useless.
Don't get me wrong, a big fan on the solar panels; however, they do have severe limitations.

Edit2
As much as I like the Goal Zero panels, when I go multi day bikepacking (such as Le Jog) I take multiple battery packs and a mains charger. ((Multiple packs gives redundancy))
If I were off grid I might consider a dynamo hub; however, at 3W max I’m not as yet convinced. During daylight hours I am moving ....unless the weather were truly shitty, in which case there’d be no solar charging

[Mbnut]

Best I've come across is the Anker one, cheap but good.

I'm a bit bleary eyed at the moment but will try to remember this thread and give feedback later.

[BigdummySteve]

I have an anker panel which I used on the large rear rack on my bigdummy, I combined it with a dynamo juggling cables between the two. I found it very effective in good light, ideally I’d combine it with a usb battery pack with dual inputs feeding from the panel and dynamo simultaneously. Even with both it can be a bit of a struggle to keep fully powered if using a gps for 12-16 hours a day.

[Richpips]

We bought one from Decathlon.

In spite of the sun shining all day and every day on a French trip it was rubbish.

[metalheart]

Hmm, not very encouraging!

Problem is, it suits the circumstances (ie people will buy one regardless).

I’d imagine that it would be used at camp rather than on the move.

Thanks for replies this far

[ScotRoutes]

I've used a PowerMonkey with solar panel around Scotland. It would just about gather enough power to recharge a Garmin Edge 705 (i.e. not very much). It fulfilled its purpose I guess.