Hello I am going outdoor camping for a week with some family and friends (6 nights)and will be deep in the woods with no power. I want to be able to power a few small Christmas lights and charge my phone and iPod while there. I have heard that you can purchase a power inverter and 12volt batteries can this work. My question is
1)How would I go about hooking everything up
2)What size power inverter do I need
3)How many batteries will I need to power this set up
4)Should I buy a solar charger to recharge the batteries (if yes what size) or just make my bank bigger
The lights will be on for about 2 hours a day and I will be using 3 traditional strings of lights (not led)aprox 25 watts each. The phone and iPod just need to be charged every other night but there will be 4 phones and 1 iPod
Thank you for your help
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
find a solar powered charger , major dept. store. electronics store
Why not enjoy the experience of camping in the deep woods without all the electrical gadgetry? If you plan on using traditional lights you are going to need a 12v car battery plus the inverter. The car battery might be a little heavy in the back pack but if you’re a big guy, no problem. Even with a solar panel you still need the battery for storage. (actually you could probably get by with a motorcycle battery). Depending on the part of the country you live, there are probably fairly remote places where you can drive in and have your car near by for a source of power for your gizmos.
Don’t buy one of those pico chargers that are avaiable. They’re useless. You can buy back packs with built in solar panels or power packs that will run a television for about 6hrs.
There are plenty of solar chargers on the market, and you won’t need lots of heavy batteries – an ipod, small lights and phone will not need a lot of power. As long as you are not too deep in the woods that you don’t get sunlight, this will be fine. Or climb a tree!
I’d recommend a Powermonkey as they are effective, cheap, small and light, perfect for a camping trip! Enjoy!