Update 7/25/2010 – Just didn’t prove useful on MOOSA Tour. Charger after 3 days in the sun didn’t have much charge. Weather was not favorable for a solar charger, overcast days, morning fog, rain at night, and some mornings. Quebec may be too far north for good performance.
Update 6/20/2010 – Need another adapter tip for my cellphone, ordered on Amazon, should have Tuesday. So far a different adapter tip for every device I charge. Will have to make sure to get charger in sun early, a few dark days and I may be in trouble.
Update 6/19/2010 – After 45 mile ride, 3 blink charge level, 40 – 59% charge level (4 hours per Solio), charged Edge 605, charge level went from 20% to 45%.
Update: 6/18/2010 – After a sunny day of riding, I was able to charge my almost dead iPod Touch. Not much charge left on the Rocksta but with care might be able to get in 2 charging cycles per day. Today, I’ll verify charging capability for my Garmin Edge. With care I should be set on those 2 devices. Fitting in my cellphone into the charge cycle is the only remaining issue. Charge time for iPod Touch was about 30 minutes.
Related Post: A Touching Surprise – iPod Touch Charging Problem Solved
Keeping your cellphone, GPS and iPod Touch charged while touring is a problem if you are spending your nights in a tent, not in a motel. (see my new riding companion).
I am searching for solutions and a backpacker friend suggested I try a solar charger. Looking around at the specs and construction of what is available, I selected the Solio Rocksta H1000.
The Rocksta just arrived. It looks sturdy enough to stand up to bicycle touring and the specs say I should be able to keep my Cellphone, GPS and iPod Touch charged by mounting it on my bike while I tour.
The mass reduction I get by carrying the iPod Touch instead of books is very significant and the connivence of the GPS and Cellphone is something I just don’t want to give up. But if you can’t keep them charged they are just worthless mass on a tour.
I am still skeptical but will keep you updated on how well the Rocksta works as a touring tool. I am hoping this does the trick, it will make my life a lot nicer.
Rocksta H1000 Specs:
– Long life internal 1000Amh Lithium-Ion Battery.
– 1 High Efficiency Solar Cell.
– Multi-function LED light/start button.
Charging cable input (USB / AC).
– Integrated Charge-out Cable
– 5-6V, 800mA output range.
– 4.8 Watts
– Rugged Lexan Shell
– Integrated Carabiner Clip
NH Fobb ..... 
Let us know how well it works when on tour. Shoot, you could even just make sure your iPod Touch is nearly dead on a Friday night and ride all day Saturday and see how it charges it up.
From a backpacking perspective, I’m not one to sit in camp all day (and keep the solar panel in the sun) and I figured walking in the woods would be too shady for it to charge up.
But with bike touring, most roads seem to be rather sunny unless you are on a small road in dense forest and it’s not noon.
Bryan, you’ve got what I have in mind. First thing I am going to do is charge the battery in the Solar cell and see if it will charge up my iPod Touch. Then I will play with mounting on my rack pack and see how much charge I get during a ride. This time of year my rides are shorter and the sun’s angle is still low. I haven’t figured out if it will be better with the solar cell mounted horizontally on top of my bag or at an angle on the side. Keeping the angle of incidence at 90 degrees isn’t easy. I need to do some more research to determine how important it is but I suspect it at least reduces the effective size of the solar cell.
Keeping my fingers crossed that this works.
Curious why you selected this over the other models. Their “Classic” has larger capacity; I can definitely see that the built in carabiner clip would make for handy mounting options…
Dan, can you give some clues on the best way to mount the solar cell? Is mounting it flat for most of the day (9AM until 4PM), OK?
For me selection seemed straight forward.
To be useful the solar cell has to sit on the back of my bike and charge while I am riding. The Classic just didn’t look like it would survive very long opened and mounted on top of my panniers or tent while riding.
The Rocksta case looked a lot more rugged than the other models and it’s rectangular shape with a clip on the top and hole on the bottom looked much easier to mount.
Capacity is a secondary issue to survival 🙂
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