Recharging 10D Batteries with Solar Power

So here's one with a twist.

I'll be spending two weeks this summer remote atlassing on the coast of Hudson's Bay. Of course the camera equipment is going but since we're flying in with severe weight restrictions, I'm limited to how I'll be able to recharge batteries (BP511s, as well as batteries for something like the Apacer portable CD writer).

I'm looking at some Brunton Solar Port power units but don't understand the electrical output specs which are: 290mA at 7.6 volts (6V setting), 145mA at 15.2 volts (12V setting) as well as 2.2 watts of power. Will such a unit power the charger that goes with the BP511?

Any other suggestions?

While your solar panel will deliver the correct voltage for this I suspect it cannot deliver enough current - my nikon charger is rated at 18 watts.

Ron Ridout wrote:Any other suggestions?

Bring a film camera!

My Elan 7 (actually the BP-300 pack attached to it) still has the 4 AA's that I put in it when I bought it in September... (~ 900 frames, including lots with the pop-up flash)

-Paul

My advice as to the most efficient setup is:

• Solar panel outputting 12V,
• charging a 12V SLA battery
• a 12V charger for the BP-511s. Either the Canon CR-560(?) or a 3rd-party unit. Don't waste power converting up to AC and then using an AC-driven charger.
• a 12V charger for the Apacer/etc.

You can leave the solar panel + SLA cell charging during the day, and then charge your other batteries from it at night. Otherwise you're going to be stuck only recharging your batteries when the sun's bright enough to supply enough current to drive your chargers.

The solar panel doesn't need to supply enough current to drive the other chargers (which it may or may not be able to do anyway) it can just trickle-charge the SLA cell, and it should be able to do this even on overcast days. The only restriction may be weight, but there's a broad variety of 12V SLA cells available - check them out.

Of course an SLA cell doesn't like being fully discharged: it undergoes sulphation and will die in that state. So ideally you would have a cell that can charge several batteries in the evening and still not be completely run-down before it gets recharged. But cell capacity is closely related to cell weight: you may have to compromise and recognise that the cell might be damaged by the end of your trip.

The other option is to take a stack of BP-511's or equivalent to last the two weeks.