Field charging with solar

General
1

It’s been a beautiful day here today, so decided to go and get some stick time in. I recently bought an Anker Solix C300 and a solar panel (in what seemed like hopeless optimism at the time :sweat_smile:) and finally had chance to try it out today - and I’m super impressed.

Took it out at 76% battery, was our from half seven this morning until one this afternoon, only had six packs with me and was able to keep the drone in the air pretty much the whole time I was out by just cycling the batteries through my two-channel charger plugged into the power bank as they were used up. After five and a half hours, then power bank was sitting at 71% thanks to the pass through solar and top-up charge in between charging the packs.

Really impressed with this thing, if anyone’s been thinking of getting something like this, I definitely recommend going for it. I could have stayed there literally all day if only I hadn’t been called back to my chores :sweat_smile:

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7 Likes
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They look good mate, but - as has been said else where, can you post a link please @rossbamford-j8rwq

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Ah apologies, forgot the link! It’s an Anker Solix C300 with their 100W foldable solar panel. They seem to be gouging the price on their own website right now, but you can get it from Amazon for about £150 less: Anker SOLIX C300 Portable Power Station with 100W Solar Panel, 288Wh LiFePO4 Battery, 300W (Peak 600W) Solar Generator, 140W Side Quick Charging Power, for Camping, Outdoors, Travel & Emergency : Amazon.co.uk: Garden

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I bought a DJI 2000 and it’s brill. Power anywhere any time.

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5

Nice, got charging envy now.

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I have that one too, and agree that it’s a great piece of kit, but the weight of it is a bit of a pain.

I usually have it in the boot but I often fly in places where it’s a bit of a walk from the car, and I’m already carrying a big backpack with a couple of drones, transmitter, goggles, lipos, chair and all the other bits and bobs, so the Anker at about 4kg together with a solar panel that folds up and then both hang off my bag was a pretty sweet proposition compared with lugging about twenty kilos for the DJI.

7

I put one together D-I-Y style, ordered the following:

100 amp hour LiPo battery
Battery box with USB 12volt and direct connection

Installed into the battery box, all done! Loads less than the DJI or the C300. For 240v I have a couple of small Inverters, I can fast charge batteries for my current DJI Mini 3 in no time at all with a big RPi mains charger. Works very well and saved me loads of cash. Just looking for some solar panels to keep it topped up for long days, but with 4 batteries for the mini 3, it’s not too much of an issue.

BackUp is a small 50 Amp hour LiPo, but I don’t use that much, so I’m thinking of selling it.

Edit - Not sure of the weight, will have to check and add it here…