[Swansea Hackspace] Solar Pi/Arduino

[Emyr Morris]

Hi there

I was looking for USB Solar packs for Pi or Arduino portable powering. I
found a plethora of this sort of thing:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/50000mAh-SOLAR-Power-Bank-Battery-Charger-iPhone-Pad-Samsung-Phone-survival-AR-/400733220970

They _claim_ 50,000mAh capacity and a 1.5W panel - that would give a
charging time of about 76+ hours of sunlight from 0 to 50,000mAh (115Wh?)

Anybody tried these out? I have one little 4000mAh solar battery pack that
I picked up when it was on offer at Maplin, the great thing about that one
it has no on/off button, just plug in the Arduino and it works, if the
battery dies, and the sun comes out, it powers up the device, no need to
turn it on... likewise, plug it into a USB source, 5V comes out to power
the device, you got it, no need to turn on the source. So... add more solar
panels (via the USB in), charge time decreases, and still nothing to turn
on.

Other USB battery packs that I have turn off the output while power is
applied to the charging input and they require a push of a button to turn
the output back on.

so I guess what I am looking for is a beefier version of my Maplin sourced
one, which was this:

http://www.oyama-mobility.com/oyama/productDetail.php?pid=17

And yes, top marks if you guessed the next bit, Maplin don't sell that
product any more!

Anybody else tried anything of this ilk and found something that works
easily?

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