Hiya, I hope I’m not completely in the wrong place (/c/Technology seems to only be dedicated to tech news but not questions). I have this powerbank with a built-in solar panel. The powerbank itself seems great so far, but it’s a pretty tiny solar panel. I’ve read about the difficulty of just hooking up a regular powerbank to a solar panel (spikes and dips in voltage due to clouds, people, etc.).
But since this powerbank is already designed to be charged with solar energy, can I simply hook a big-ass solar panel onto it and recharge it much faster than the officially displayed “several days, depending on the weather”?
It depends on the power bank. To ensure it’s safe and doesn’t damage the power bank you’d want to find out the specs of the onboard charge controller (if there is one) and ensure it’s rated to take the amount of voltage and current (amps) from the auxillary panels.
Make sure the connections between the panel and the powerbank before it gets to the controller are also all rated correctly as that could be a failure point too if the connection goes from a high voltage/current cable to one rated to carry less. Kind of like forcing a high volume of water into a smaller pipe and busting it.
It should theoretically be safe then. You might also want to consider introducting a fuse into the circuit and, here’s where I am a bit fuzzy and you should take it with a grain of salt, you might be able to use a voltage regulator with current limiting to step the voltage and current down to match the powerbank specs or even possibly another charge controller (there are different kinds that may or may not be suitable for your application) but I really don’t know enough to confidently recommend that. Maybe someone else who knows more can chime in on that bit.
