From our phones to digital watches, GPS and just about everything else electronics are a vital part of our lives. Many of us have outlets dedicated to charging a wide range of devices in our kitchens and bedrooms. What do you do when you’re out in the woods, in the middle of a power outage or god forbid struggling to connect to loved ones after a disaster.
Sunjack has developed a solution that works for that long day on the range, the trip to the woods or the emergency power source during a disaster. The SUNJACK 14W PORTABLE SOLAR CHARGER 8000mAh Battery system is what you need when you’re far from an outlet.
The system includes:
4 solar panels that fold out from what looks a Trapper Keeper.
On the back of the panels is a mesh zippered pocket with 2 USB ports
8000mAh battery.
2 carabineers to mount the panels facing the sun.
1 mini USB charging cable (for the battery)
What are Watts and mAh?
To put Watts and mAh into perspective a small iPhone charger is 5W with the larger Ipad charger is 12W think of this as the amount of energy that is being transferred at a time. mAh represents the volume of power that is stored. The 8000mAh is enough to fully charge 4 iPhones or 1 tablet based on it’s specs. I found it charged my iPhone 6 twice before it depleted the battery when not attached to the solar panel.
Charging ratings on solar panels is based on the full sun so you want to make sure that any panel you purchase is at least 30-40% more than your required drain. It is best to go 100% more if possible. With this in mind, if tablets are your primary concern, you might want to go with the larger 20W 16000mAh version.
What’s That Mean to Me?Our usage during testing was for powering my cell phone as well as charging up a GoPro during long trips to the range documenting a review and camping . For these purposes, the panel worked fantastically. With 2 ports attached to the solar panel, you can direct charge a device as well as the 8000mAh battery. The Battery is removable so after a full charge, you can take the battery with you to use on the go.
Some things to note, the folding solar panels are black and designed to be laid in the sun so if you lay your phone on top of it while charging it will get hot. I mean really hot, in my first test I accidentally activated my phone’s safety shut down. This is easily fixed by placing the phone under the panels flap keeping it shaded but it is something you need to be aware of. The rear mesh pouch is perfect for this, you can move around while charging without losing your device or getting tangled in cords.
The Sunjack website claims that the 8000mAh battery will charge in 5 hours. This is based on the full and optimized sun. In the real world of the cold north, we found this to take closer to 7 hours. However, even 7 hours to charge a battery that will charge 4 phones is damn impressive when outlets are not an option. Charging of devices from either the panel or the battery was in line with wall charger times which is really impressive for such a small device.
