Hello all,

I'm in the process of getting my electronics together for doing bikepacking and could use a hint or two on how to resolve this. Looks like I'm going to have a number of USB powered items that I will be rolling with. I'm wanting to roll with a small solar panel too to help keep things powered up. What I have is;

- Nexus 7 pad
- Phone (not sure yet what that will be)
- Cygolite (360 lumens)
- Cygolite Hotshot
- Various batteries, Goalzero Switch, and two of these sticks
- There maybe other items I either would need in the future or I've yet to list. So one or two other units for the future.

What I'm hoping I'll be able to do is roll with charging these pieces either with my solar panel, or when I stop at either a campgrounds or stop at a eating establishment. When I do stop at a eating establishment, I'm hoping I could get things charged up as quick as possible. So I don't want to waste time on a low powered USB port when my item would have taken a high powered USB port. I assume that would a port that is 5W at 2amps, yes?

So what I was thinking was, I know the AC adapter for the Nexus 7 has a nice high powered USB port. So that would be one port. I'm thinking of buying another cause they are pretty lite and compact. So I would have two nice ports from AC. (Now comes the more clueless part of me!) So if I'm using some kind of splitter and splitting these two ports, it would seem that the amps get split in half........right? Is there a way to avoid this and get something small and compact that would offer me 4 high-powered ports?

Also it looks like the best way to go when I'm on the road is charge up the batteries listed above with the solar panel. Then harvest what ever I can by the end of the night.

Thanks for reading this and I'm open to any and all comments. If there's someone blogging about this that knows alot more than I do, please do share!

Consider these two items (or something similar):
[h=1]Anker® 2nd Gen Astro E3 10000mAh Dual-Port Ultra Compact External Battery Portable USB Charger Power Bank - I have something similar to this (actually 2) and it works great.[/h]EasyAcc® 20W 4A 4-Port USB Wall Charger with Folding Plug Portable Travel Charger
I also have something like this for general travel purposes, not just bike touring.

-or- you could go the expensive way and look into a front wheel dynamo setup with a usb outlet on the stem liek this: LightCharge Hub USB Shimano/SP

I've not seen wall wart chargers with more than 2amps output and 2 ports. But, that charges my phone and another set of liion batteries fairly fast. I also use a 4 way splitter on my solar panel. Not for more ports, but to spare the output from wear and tear. If the splitter dies I can replace it. If the regulator on the panel dies... well its toast.

5 VOLTS (not watts) at 2 amps. If you're carrying a panel that can reliably deliver that, it's going to be big. What you probably want if you must charge strictly from solar is a battery that will trickle from the solar and then dump power into your devices all at once. However, I really don't think you'll be able to keep all that stuff charged even if you stop for an hour or two to charge things at mid-day when solar output would be at its highest.

If you have ready access to AC power, I VERY HIGHLY RECOMMEND this thing:

Anker® 40W 5-Port Family-Sized Desktop USB Charger

It's deck of cards size, has 5 outlets, can put out 40 watts, and will just automatically detect what kind of device you plug into it and reconfigure the port. You can plug in an Android phone, an iPad, any number of things and you'll just automatically get ports configured optimally for that device. I just got one and it's fantastic. I'm not screwing with anything else anymore, especially for travel. Just being able to plug everything in at once without worrying about compatibility is great.

Opps.... 5 volts, not watts. The items mentioned above looked interesting and will definitely be considered. The only item that I doubt I'd follow up on is the hub setup. Looks like it can be easily nicked and would have to watch out for.

The charger each would be considered more if they had at least two USB ports that had 2.1 amps that would go together if needed. I'd like that and would like to avoid an AC line if I could. Fold-able prongs are a definite plus!

My solar panel is a panel that puts out 5volts at 1amp. I'm pretty sure this can be daisy chained and put out 5volts at 2amps. As this shows?



I'm thinking I could work on putting another solar panel together that I could plug into this one. This will be my next little adventure. Put together a solar panel that would give me 5 volts at 2amps.

The one I pointed out (with the AC cord unfortunately) can supply 2.1 amps to multiple ports at once. At 5 volts that's about 11 watts and it's a 40 watt supply so I assume it can do 2.1 amps to two ports and less to the other three. It's unlikely that anyone would have more than two devices that could take 2.1 amps anyway, that's usually a tablet and a phone.

The charger you mentioned states that it has "4 amps overall". So I'm a bit lost how it will do 2.1 amps on two ports. Admittedly I'm shooting for more than I'll probably need, but I rather aim higher than I need to rather than lower.

Were you talking to me, or the other guy? The one I pointed out says 8 amps total.

"Industry-leading power.
An off-the-charts output of 40 watts / 8 amps charges all your phones, tablets and other devices simultaneously."

Have you bought the solar panel already?

How fast does it recharge your tablet? On a nexus 7, it'll show recharge time on the battery status display, but the counter resets when it hits a full charge. And it shows which functions are using the most power. You can select "airplane mode" when you aren't using wifi or bluetooth, and that will save some power.

Are you planning to recharge while riding by having the solar panel on top of your rack? That won't be an optimal angle to the sun, so it's output will probably be considerably lower than the stated maximum watts.

I have the Hotshot 2w tail light, and run it on single blink, at about 2 blinks per second. I normally recharge it after two evening rides, 5-6 hours. I haven't timed it, but it charges up fast when plugged into my laptop, in maybe 45-60 minutes.

Sorry for not answering you more directly. I see where you are getting that figure. It weird how they advertise this thing. In one of the four bullets it states;
Exclusive PowerIQ Technology: Detects your device to deliver its fastest possible charge speed up to 2.4 amps per port or 4 amps overall.
Then further down on their ad it states;
Output:

5V / 8A overall / 2.4A max per port (Note: an iPhone draws a 1A current, a Galaxy S5 draws 2.1A and an iPad Air 2.4A)

Looks like they mentioned "8A" twice! So that would pretty much trump the "4 amps overall" that I pointed out?

Looks like the best you can expect in getting the correct info on alot of these products being marketed by non-English "techs" is to read up what the feedback is.

This is nice unit that looks like it gets good reviews. Not exactly what I was envisioning, but it's do-able.

I have my solar panel already. I tried once to see what I would get plugging in my Nexus 7 into the panel and let it charge all day. The tablet was powered down when I did this and of course protected from the sun, but it didn't do that hot! It charged something like 20% of the battery. When I charge the little batteries mentioned at the top, they would get a full charge. Then I transfer the power to the tablet. The battery from GoalZero charges about 45-46%. The other two batteries would transfer 54-55%. It's way better using the panel to charge these batteries and do a transfer.

I have an app on it that does alot of the powering down of features. Sorry, but I don't tablet with me right now. The tablet pretty much stays running in various modes and last all day. I'm pretty sure I'll be powering this down as needed when in use.

I'm thinking that I'd be able to somewhat manage with my panel and an occasional AC charge on my travels.

I did get a response back from GoalZero. I just asked about the three lines on the pic I posted. The USB line is rather obvious. It's the other two lines that I'm a bit clueless on. He responded as such;

Thank you for contacting Goal Zero! We appreciate your support!

In one of your emails you are referring to a nomad 3.5 in another you are referring to a nomad 7. Either way the two ports you are referring to are there to chain solar panels and to charge our guide 10 battery packs using the super charge cable. If you are referring to the nomad 3.5 the specs are Solar Port (for Guide 10): 6-6.5V, 0.5A max (3.0 W), not regulated. If you are referring to the nomad 7 the specs are Mini Solar Port (2.5mm): 6.5V, up to 1.1A (7W max). these specs work both ways input and output so for the chain input and guide 10 output.
Hope this answers your question!


The thing states that it is a Nomad 3.5, but looking on their site and it looks like it is a Nomad 7. What I'm thinking I could do is add to this setup to get more amperage.