Solargorilla & the Kensington Ultra Portable Battery Pack

Photo

The Solargorilla easily charges any iPhone model through just the USB to iPhone connector supplied.. Providing you have sun.

If you find yourself under a blanket of cloud & havn't yet invested in the Powergorilla or Minigorilla you may find a workaround with an old iPhone backup battery that's lying forgotten in the bottom of a tech bag.

I found an overcast sky towards the end of the day just falling short of providing all the power needed to feed the Solargorilla to charge the iPhone. I also found an old Kensington lithiam-ion polymer in the glovebox with mini USB in & USB out.

When the Solargorilla is plugged into the Kensington 'Ultra Portable Battery Pack' and the battery into the iPhone, not only did the battery charge, but so did the iPhone.

Having a battery inline really helps when the light is low if you want to squeeze the last bit of free energy out of our spring light.

The Kensington Ultra Portable Battery Pack has a rated output at 5VDC 1.50A and has served me well for a while now. It's new home will be in with my Solargorilla.. Just in case.

I'm @Documentally on Twitter
Posted April 5, 2010
Apr 06, 2010
tookie bunten said...
Would be interesting to know why having a battery inline made a difference. Did the battery have a charge still in it? Or does it have a more powerful output than the solargorilla? Hey it worked and I suppose that's the main thing and that's all you really need to worry about. :)
Apr 06, 2010
Documentally said...
The iPhone 3gs seems to need a slightly larger voltage to charge over the 3g. Only a long term test with the solar panel will tell me why this configeration works. Unless of course I ask the manufacturers to comment here.. :).
Apr 06, 2010
tookie bunten said...
Please do, for both the long term test and the manufacturers as currently I carry numerous apple USB cables and car chargers to keep my 3gs topped up. A genuinely robust solar/battery backup charger would be great. Especially out in a field or up a hillside. :)

Sent from my iPhone

Apr 23, 2010
Richard Mackney said...
The Kensigton will accept a small input to charge so as long as the solar panel has had enough time connected to the Kensington to build up it can transfer (inline) to the iPhone at the higher rate - obviously at some point it will catch up with itself and stop charging.

I've had a play with the Kensington connected to Solar and Wind on this post: http://richard.mackney.com/hy-mini-wind-turbine-usb-charger

Rich