Two customers recently took our 7 Watt Solar Charger Kit (we recommend our 9 Watt Kit as an updated alternative) on a hiking tour across Northern Norway, Sweden and Finland. They used the kit to charge their GPS, Nex F3 battery and Olympus Pl-1.
Our customer explains better than we could: “There was very bad visibility, but conversely some beautifully sunny nights (which is when I did most of my charging). The Narvik mountains have a micro-climate (not a good one!) due to their prominence and their close proximity to the sea. The first four days were tough on the morale (with eight hour sections taking fourteen) but it slowly improved.”
The Voltaic equipment worked great, I had the GPS on a lot because of poor visibility and long x-country sections with no trails. It also charged the camera batteries rapidly.
The cabins were incredible, that is a great system that the DNT runs. We had all the cabins to ourselves except one which we shared with a nice couple from Norway who were on a wilderness fishing trip.
The pictures on the lake were taken at: 68°03’33″N, 17°35’35″E near the Skoaddejahvre cabin. They were taken on the summer solstice night. I went swimming that night- it was cold! The one with the green background mountain was in Sweden near the Finnish border.”
Here are two shots of the setup of the kit pre-trip. The panels are attached to sheets of polyethylene. The batteries sit inside a waterproof tupperware container with two cable-glands for the wire entry. “I can’t take a swim with it, but it is splash proof and if I fall in during a river crossing it should be OK if I get right out.”
Read more about charging a camera from solar panels.
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