I know a few people that tried them out, but they dont seem to last long and if you test them over the months the output gradualy drops, depends whether you want to risk it or not though £15 is not much for these

I`ve tried a few myself for charging mobiles when walking but even they do not have a very long life, so went for mini power pack, smaller than a solar charger but fit in pocket and charge/start a car without problems

I think these solar chargers have a way to go yet imo

I thought of making one from a junked solar charged sign-lamp a while ago with 2 6V panels in series, but the amperage output was tiny (about 10mA IIRC).

You can buy solar trickle charges form many internet sites. No need to re-invent the wheel.

But since you have spent the last few years developing a replacement for copaslip I suppose this should be expected.

If you've got the bits, as I had, why not try it? Didn't work very well, but then it seems that the bought ones don't always work well for very long either.

Re copaslip replacement, necessity is a muvva, but in this case a collateral benefit was an easy and essentially free rust treatment method, which I've found quite useful.

Of course hardly anyone (else) (at least in the First World) still runs rusty bangers, but if I'd thought of it in the 70's I think I could have reasonably expected a high rise council block in Barnsley to have been named after me.

Edited by edlithgow on 03/02/2017 at 20:07

Thanks. Seems a better deal than the Maplin one.

Ordered one but it didn't arrive before we were leaving so we cancelled, but GF got a Maplin's one for her dad.

It stopped working (probably as judged by the LED) after a couple of weeks and she's just given it to me to look at.

It produces about 2V in (slightly overcast) sunlight, no LED output, no detectable amperage.

The case appears to be plastic-welded so I probably can't dismantle it without breakage, but there probably won't be an opportunity to return it anyway (a drawback of buying stuff overseas) so that doesn't much matter.

What is likely to go wrong with these, and is any of it fixable?

Badly soldered connections, I suppose. Anything else?