Power on the trail

How long of a trip?

Just a phone and GPS?

Are you running the phone in airplane mode?

I can get 3+ days of iPhone use on a single charge if I’m in airplane mode. I’m taking photos, checking location on Gaia GPS and occasionally listening to some music or a downloaded podcast if I can’t sleep.

30000 mah of battery and a solar panel seems like a lot of capacity. Unless I’m misunderstanding, my suggestion is to make sure you are using your devices in an efficient manner. Then you’ll be able to get by with less battery capacity.

Request: can we not have ten people lecture the OP about why he shouldn’t bring a phone with?

https://www.ultralightdandy.com/hiking-power-banks/

https://www.adventurealan.com/iphone-gps-map-backpacking/

Do you put your smart phone into airplane mode?  GPS apps will still work with the phone’s GPS chip (if you’ve downloaded the base maps in advance).  Then your phone isn’t pinging the cell network.  I notice a greater battery draw when I’m far from cell sites or have no overage when the phone is pinging at maximum power versus being close to a cell site and uses less wattage to stay connected.

Sometimes the difference is quite marked, say a 90 minute drive through a mountain pass with no coverage using a lot of battery versus kind of a lot of data use very close to a cell tower using much less.

I get 3 charges of my phone from that pack. Yes. I think capacity is really high on the face of it as well. I was looking at small, 4000 mAh powerbanks, size of a lipstick, on forums today and a couple of posters said they get a FULL phone charge from such a small powerbank.

That’s one of the reasons I’m asking.

As for the phone, I have the Arctic Norway map website on it and weather reports (essential where I go), plus several other mountain trail apps. I did use them a lot. Paper maps are my preference, with compass and GPS, but no detailed paper maps available.

:/

Hi David

No. I didn’t use airplane mode. But my phone last year was an older one with no GPS chip.

I don’t take a vehicle. On foot in the mountains constantly. Some cell phone coverage though, except in canyon -type valleys.

Next trip I’ll have a far newer Samsung S10, if I take it (matthew k may be suggesting NO?).

I uploaded many trail maps beforehand for offline use, but still needed a good amount of live internet access. I DO know I probably overused though. I know the environment better now for a return trip.

Thanks for those links, matthew K.

Perhaps this newer phone (Android), will need less charging. I was recharging every 2 days. Sometimes more frequently than that.

Apologies for multi-posting. :(

Map

and

compass.

:)

Thanks for your reply. As I said, I use compass and GPS and my preferred paper maps, where possible. But, as mentioned, no detailed paper trail maps exist for this place. Nor even trails in some cases. Online access IS necessary and IS possible here. For sometimes scant terrain information, weather data and other personal health-related reasons.

I did ask for recommendations of lighter, efficient solar panels as well as lighter powerbanks that might help.

Thanks to those who helped in that way. Especially the links. 👍

I’ll make this my last post in this thread. Thanks for your advice. I’ll bear your advice in mind.
Sorry to sound particular/pedantic. This is a particularly remote part of Europe and last year I was trekking almost entirely away from all human contact for 6 weeks. If (and a big IF), this comes to be, then this future trip may well be similar or longer. Perhaps 2 months.
I have it on good authority that no paper maps of sufficient detail exist for trekking in this region. I am able to be online sometimes in this region, however. I was last year, intermittently. I need to be online for several reasons, including medical reasons.
Anyway, all I want please is (mainly), any recommendation of a lighter weight solar panel that is efficient. Taking multiple power banks is not an option for this trip. If nobody has any lighter weight solar alternatives or lighter weight similarly high mAh bank alternatives, no matter. Thanks for your help anyway.
Thanks.

There are hordes of small solar panels on ebay, and very cheap these days.

What I found was that the angle you mount the panel at on your pack has a very big effect on the charging. It did work though.

Cheers

Wayne,

If you come back to this thread . . .

The challenge with solar is all the variables: weather, latitude, angle, etc. With a battery backup you know how much capacity you have (although the manufacturer specs tend to be over stated, as are panels).

So the best approach is to calculate your daily amperage requirements, then size your panel based on what you think it will produce on average along with how much extra you can have/store in a battery pack. There really isn’t any other way to do this accurately. With this approach, the weight of panels or battery packs becomes somewhat irrelevant. How much capacity needed is the determining factor. The determination of actual requirements, backup capacity, and solar output really need to be tested yourself (not spec sheets), else you may end up with a dead phone when you really need it.

Hey Wayne. I saw this yesterday and meant to post it here but got distracted. This guy seems to have had a really good experience with this 90g panel. I ordered one and I’ll be curious to see how it works.

http://jmt2019.de/?page_id=51

Hi Matthew. This looks very promising and he looks as though his experience and requirements are very similar to my own. I, also, am a heavy use landscape photographer when in the Arctic and carry an extra 3 to 4 camera batteries which I need to recharge regularly. His experience-tips are very useful and I may well look into that panel. It was almost like reading a resume of my own out-in-the-wilds experiences in Norway and I was glad to see I do actually do some of the things he mentions in terms of organisation and power/time management, such as carrying a small backup pb. A good find (thankyou), and I’m going to look into possibly purchasing  it as well. Even if just to test its potential for my next expedition. It’s potential fragility may be a concern, especially as I get into some testing situations in the mountains sometimes. There’ll be a get-around for that though. I’ve seen mention of a fairly lightweight panel from a specialist American company, SunTactics, and I had a feeling someone might have mentioned it, or similar, here. It’s not cheap, though. Especially for import. Also, OutdoorGearlab’s review of it isn’t that brilliant. Although, they do review others as well.

Thanks Matthew. The one you’re buying looks promising. Much appreciated. :)

I have plenty to get on with. Thankyou.

Hey Wayne. I had a very unsatisfying experience with a Suntactics S5 on the JMT but I was trying to direct charge to phone/InReach/camera during breaks rather than to an intermediate battery.

I think the problem is that the S5 just barely met the minimum voltage (amperage? I don’t know what I’m talking about with electricity) requirements for my phone. If the panel was anything other than perfectly aligned to the sun or there was even a little haze the phone would between charging/not charging and lose power. I think I would have had a much better experience if I had used an intermediate battery and let it charge slowly on the top of my pack all day as the guy in that link above had done.

My original plan had been to charge a small Anker lipstick battery (3350mah?) but I freaked out at my base weight the night before that hike and took a lot of stuff out of my pack. That turned out to be the only poor choice I made that night.

Or, if I had stepped up to the Suntactics S10 I think I would have perhaps had enough excess power that the panel could have charged the phone directly without cycling on/off.

Hi Matthew.

I definitely know what you mean about freaking out about baseweight. For thru-hiking, it’s difficult and I can’t go ultralight due to my camera gear. I’m not too bad though. I do use an intermediate powerbank. I looked at the Tomshine on AliExpress and I’ve alos just RE-looked at another that has very mixed reviews here in the UK. It doesn’t have a very dissimilar spec to the one you recommend buying. Because it’s cheap and also here in the UK, I might get this one to test for now. I actually think it’s an American brand. Not sure what country you’re in – I assumed U.S.. Sorry if not. Anyway, here’s a YouTube review of it from a guy that uses it in a way similar to how I would. I’ve also contacted him with a few questions. Seems a nice chap. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9CSUX4qKGg

P.S. I know some people don’t rate this one, but it’s cheaply priced, so I may try it here in Wales.

Thanks Matthew

You should get at least 7 full charges out of 30,000 mAh.

I get more than 2 full charges off my 10k mAh pack.

Not running airplane mode will suck your battery, especially if you go through spots without service. I’d guess you are using maybe 3x more capacity than you should be. You can run airplane mode and just turn it off here and there when you need data to save tons of battery.