Solar powering photon via battery pack with built-in solar charger

I’ve been looking for a solar power solution to power a photon and rather than building something am thinking of using a solar battery pack such as those used to recharge mobile phones. Here are a couple examples:

Some Pros as I see them:

  • No need to buy a solar panel, battery, or battery shield
  • No need for a voltage regulator
  • If needed, could hook up a separate solar panel to help recharge the battery

Cons:

  • Solar panels are pretty small

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance,
Paul

Hi There,

Did you go forward with this? I ask because that seems like a good solution for a project I am considering, but curious if you had done it and what kind of results you had.

Thanks,
-Nicholas

I’ve done some research and haven’t found a battery pack solution that meets all my requirements.

On the positive side:

  • It was really easy to plug the photon USB power directly into the battery pack and power the photon.
  • The voltage regulator on the battery packed worked perfectly.

The issues:

  • When the photon goes into low power mode, the battery pack turns off thinking there’s nothing attached.
  • Without lots of sun, the solar panel on the battery pack isn’t large enough to keep the battery charged when powering the photon for an extended period.
  • The battery pack won’t supply electricity to the photon and charge from an external source simultaneously, so attaching a larger solar panel doesn’t work.

That’s it for now, going to keep looking…

Thanks for the update.

any update? I’m wanting to do the same thing.