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Living in a tent. any portable suggestions?

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Hi, I will be living in the mountains in a tent(walking with backpack) by end of March. i will be 20 miles away from electricity.

I am seeking advice on what best overall to get... I need to charge Samsung phone and Dell laptop.

Any experiences advice for me? Money is tight so I need best advice on equipment I can rely on since I'm far from electricity. Also, I am on foot.

Solar panel?
Generator?

Or do I need both?

Thanks.
 
"generator" usually means 120VAC. If you have 12V adapters to power your phone and laptop, you can skip AC, no inverter required.
A PV panel, charge controller, and battery could work.
Backpacking, you care about weight so lithium battery would be lighter than either AGM lead-acid or LiFePO4.
You can find lithium battery packs with USB ports and 12V outlets. They usually charge with an AC adapter or maybe 12V car adapter.
The trick will be how to best charge with a PV panel, which can produce 17V to 21V. If it was me I would assemble a voltage regulator, but I'm an EE.
Maybe you can find a "generator" with PV input and no inverter, saving cost and weight.
There are (somewhat) flexible or foldable PV panels which might fit your needs.

Figure out how many watt-hours per day you will require. Consider how long you can sit with a panel aimed at the sun. We estimate 5 hours effective full sun if a panel is left out all day long, because angle of sun changes.
 
I will be ordering from Amazon. I've read reviews of solar panel suitcases and generator. not sure what best economic brands to buy for my simple needs. I will be hiking in foot.
 
There are some solutions made especially for your situation. You need to figure out how much power you need. Check out almost any hiking, backpacking, camping supplier. REI has a nice selection.
 
Hi, I will be living in the mountains in a tent(walking with backpack) by end of March. i will be 20 miles away from electricity.

I am seeking advice on what best overall to get... I need to charge Samsung phone and Dell laptop.

Any experiences advice for me? Money is tight so I need best advice on equipment I can rely on since I'm far from electricity. Also, I am on foot.

Solar panel?
Generator?

Or do I need both?

Thanks.
Is this for actual trekking and not stationary "living in a tent"?
weight is going to be critical factor.

Food, water, tent, cooking utilities etc already weight so much that even a small laptop sucks on top of all that.

First of all: What laptop model and how much do you plan to use the laptop?
 
Its for trekking to a stationary spot. I can pull supplies with a self (me) propelled bicycle so I won't have all the weight on my back.
 
My wife and son both work from home, using lights, laptops and phone printer and leave them on 24*7 Judging from that, you will be looking at no more than 6A and you multiply that by the number of hours a day you plan to use that. from there you can calculate the size of the battery and solar panels, which also depends on your location and how many usable hours of sun you expect. A generator is easier, but I wouldn't want to listen to that if I am out in nature.

Will has some reviews on different solar generators, which might be a better solution than building your own, at least when you are in a tent.
 
I need advise on which brand and model type of solar panel and generator I need because I won't have access to electricity for 20 miles. I can leave laptop home and just charge Samsung phone. but I wanted to be able to utilize charging a laptop later when I go in my car. Right now I am thinking a 50W solar panel would do the trick
 
Its for trekking to a stationary spot. I can pull supplies with a self (me) propelled bicycle so I won't have all the weight on my back.

If that is pulling a trailer, then a 100W to 300W rigid glass PV panel is the economical and heavy option. Size ranges from 2x5' to 3x6' They can be bought for $0.15 to $0.30/watt, while flexible panels will cost $1 to $2/watt. If cost is no object you could get multiple lightweight flexible panels.

Laptop could be a significant power drain. If yours is high performance (e.g. I use a Dell engineering workstation with Nvidia graphics) consider a lightweight one with very long run time on its own battery. That will require much less PV to recharge.

I need advise on which brand and model type of solar panel and generator I need because I won't have access to electricity for 20 miles. I can leave laptop home and just charge Samsung phone. but I wanted to be able to utilize charging a laptop later when I go in my car. Right now I am thinking a 50W solar panel would do the trick

A 50W (STC) panel may produce 40W actual power. Left in the sun all day it would receive 5 hours effective sun for 200 Wh/day.
Plenty for a cell phone. You'll have to determine actual power consumption of your laptop. They use more with screen bright, so better to use at night with dim screen.

Figure out your Wh/day consumption, then see if there is a "solar generator" package with sufficient battery and PV to meet your needs.
 
Right now I am thinking a 50W solar panel would do the trick
Sounds way too small to me when I look at the load here. but if you use your laptop 1 hour a day, you might get away with it.
 
I like the rigid idea so I thought about getting the suitcase portable solar panels. I read that the portable plastic kinds warp on the fabric so I'm skeptical about portable solar panels. Thanks for everyone's help. Live well, be happy.
 
I would look at the military spec panel that Will just introduced in his latest video.
 
Thanks for Will video advice. That is what I need! The 80 wattcheaper one of course.

I actually work in the mountains building solar grids for power plants 350Megawatt. we are about to build a 690MW to power NV, AR, and CA.

My advice to you fine folks is to have a way to protect your panels during storms. they break easily. wind can toss a pebble/rock and the panel is broken. We just had a high wind and many panels installed weren't screwed down good and of course fell. many had rocks hit it from wind. Birds is a huge problem in solar. They think it's water and five down only to kill themselves. I suggest during storms and windy conditions to protect car, rv solar panels. thanks so much again. Be safe and always stay happy.
 
Remind me not to have his company do my install.

"many panels installed weren't screwed down good and of course fell"

The 110+ panels in my system have survived everything thrown their way in the past 17 years, none lost.
If California's grid will depends on their work in the future, I'm glad I have my own backup.
 
I have a sunpower 12w folding panel that's made of rubber and totally waterproof. I trimmed away a lot of the unneeded rubber and got the weight down to 4oz. I can hang it on my backpack as I'm hiking and it will charge my phone in a day, even if I'm not in full sunlight all day. Probably take 4 hours in static position in full sun. Obviously, if there's no sun, there's no charging, so I carry an Anker battery pack. Unfortunately, it weighs over a pound, but it will recharge my headlight and phone several times.

The key is to limit your use of electric devices as charging them regularly requires a fair amount of weight.
 
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