We’re heading out to Mt. Washington for a backcountry ski trip and bringing along lots of USB devices to make our trip more fun. To understand the power needs for our solar chargers, we created a summary of our power needs across all of the devices.

usb devices powered by solar

Here’s the breakdown:

ECOROX Waterproof Bluetooth Speaker for music – 1,800mAh battery (6.7 Watt hours), 10 hour battery life. Lets assume 5 hours of use a day.

AAXA LED PICO to watch movies on snowbanks at night – 2,000mAh battery (7.4 Watt hours), 80 minute battery life.  We need at least 103 minutes to get through Dazed and Confused.

Black Diamond Sprinter Headlamp so we can see – battery size unlisted, guessing about 1,000mAh (3.7 Watt hours), 6 hour battery life.  Sun sets around 5:30, lets say 4 hours a day for morning and nighttime use.

Voltaic USB Touchlight – more lighting – no battery, can run 27 hours on a 15 Watt hour battery. 4 hours a day.

Sensordrone Monitor – battery size unlisted. This is more experimental so we’re ok if this runs out of juice.

iPhone for music and backup photography and communications when we have signal – 1420mAh (5.2 Watt hours) – plan to run it down every 12 hours or so.

In total, that comes to 28 Watt hours that we need to produce from batteries and / or solar power each day. Given the cold weather, lets bump that up by 20% to 34 Watt hours. Our plan is to bring 2 x Fuse 6Ws plus a 16 Watt Kit. The addition of the 16 Watt Kit is probably overkill, but when you work for a solar company, why not?

 

 

 

 

 

 

2 Responses

  1. Kevin

    So, how’d the trip go? We shouldn’t have been that much of a power drain, depending on how you used the Sensordrone.

    Curious to hear your findings!

    Reply
    • admin

      Its actually still pending, waiting for the “go” signal from the guys up in NH. Bags (and sensordrone) are packed though.

      Reply

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