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Foxelli Solar Panels -Mantis Outdoors

Description

Conveniently a we got some solar panels sent to us from foxelli. A previous video that I recently did I discussed external batteries and in that video a love you had some questions about solar panels hopefully this video will show you the quality of these panels and answer those questions that you had in the previous video

to purchase these solar panels follow the link below

https://www.foxelli.com

Video Transcription

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hey hey guys doing this William Myers Mass outdoors back at you with another video and in today's video we're gonna talk about something that was it kind of brought up a lot in a previous video that I did where not too long ago I talked about external battery packs in the woods power in the woods what I prefer options for people and in that comment section a lot of people were talking about solar panels like hey what about solar panels do you use solar panels were they good for ya yeah well just so happens that company fox le sent me and chris some solar panels that they wanted us to test out and i figured that it's perfect for you guys for this video so don't go away so fox le like i said send me out two solar panels one is their bigger 21 watt solar panel and it's about the size of a small notebook not too bad it's about one i think i have the card in here i think it's one pound 17 ounces to be matter-of-fact so it's not really too heavy this is definitely something that you would want to pack and like a main pack this isn't something that probably would be going into a haversack very comfortably but that being said 21 watts on a given sunny day which we don't have those in ohio but it's very convenient and you know i don't have very much experience with this solar panel yet we're just now kind of i've only charged a few things on it and like I said we don't get very many sunny days but that being said today is the perfect day to test this because if you look up we have literally scattered cover no Sun at all very gray skies these solar panels will still work a question I have a question yes we said probably wouldn't work in a haversack but unfold that and lay it over the haversack and see well the point that I'm trying to make there is that in this haversack now that you mention it there is the second product that they sent which is their 10 watt solar panel which is much more convenient to go into well I'm iris I'm thinking about having it folded over top to have her sack and then having your phone plugged in in your haversacks absolutely well that's another thing that we're no we get into as well is this thing they have just a million attachment points they give you these carabiners it has all kinds of little attachment holes and points and lanyards that you can attach carabiners to this thing can be set up on trees on packs while you're hiking things like that I mean it really could there's a multitude of things a multitude of ways that you could set this up for solar charging so when will says a million what he really means is eight slight difference so this has six photovoltaic panels and these aren't connected these are two different so I call I class Emma six even though the run in series so right now as you can see on the twenty one watt the big solar panel they give you a voltmeter on here so this thing is pumping out about five point three to five five point three three to five point three two volts badass yankor do that yeah like that so I mean as soon as you open this thing up you say okay I am getting UV radiation cool let's do this so if Chris could let me borrow his phone for a second my phone doesn't have any Rick and Morty ringtones on it and you know like I said I have the information for these solar panels we're gonna get into that here and there this when I test these out I do want to do probably maybe another video on each one of these separately and I want to show how long it takes to get maybe 50 cent battery on the phone or something like that something that we could actually test and see how long it takes to charge that powerhouse if it's totally dried so if you can kind of get a close-up we are charging Bixby there we go we are charging right now we're at 66% so let's kind of go through the rest of the video talking about the solar panel itself and read off some literature that they sent you know just to read guys off some of the stats to the solar panel the solar panels off like I've said is 21 watts the big one is the smaller one is 10 watts but just focusing on the 21 watt bigger solar panel it outputs 5 volts to 3.5 amps it has dual USBs unfolded size is twenty seven point six by eleven point four inches folded size is eleven point four by six point seven inches and like I said it's one pound seventeen ounces or for you everybody else outside the US it's point 50 to 53 kilograms alright so the stats on the 10 watt charger again it's 10 watts again five volts or 1.8 5 amps it's 24 by eight inches folded by 9.5 folded it's nine point five by five point nine inches so like I said you know in this only weighs a one pound thirteen ounces or 51 kilograms so the weight difference in my opinion isn't that much you know you're only talking about what five ounces for ounces or so of weight but just the size difference of it makes it a little bit more convenient in my opinion that being said I don't have too much experience mm-hmm but how fast these things are going to be charging especially in the cloud cover that we have right now so you know if we had bright sunny day this would probably be charging a lot faster but it is charging period so that's impressive just on its own so what we're gonna do right now is we've been charging on we've been charging on the big solar panel so let's move to 10 watt what's the percentage on that sixty seven percent now so we've went up a point in like five minutes which is you know it's nothing really huge amount we want it one percent in five minutes but still we're just harnessing UV radiation from the Sun so pretty cheap way to charge things alright so now we got the 10 watt solar panel out and I'm going to plug this bad boy in alright we are charging so even on this crappy cloud cover day we are charging the phone and you know this is something that you know if you're in camp things like that your phone what we more or less one thing for is you know keeping camera batteries charged keeping our phones charged I don't actually I switch from using cameras period all my videos are done on a phone now because it's one it suits in 4k it's way better I can edit things and and produce things completely on my phone so why not why do I need to carry around a camera when I could just carry my phone so that's what I've been doing lately so you know having these solar panels and maybe external battery pack if I can use the Sun save my external battery pack you know for maybe the night time shoots or something like that if my battery gets low at night charge this thing in a day I have full charging capabilities through you know 24 hours a day you know and just for some general tips if you're out camping and you're charging your phones and stuff like that at least where we go we got in the woods we're not getting very good data signal or anything like that anyway so you're trying to conserve your phone resources make sure you close all the windows so you minimize the apps that are running and especially I don't know how I phones are but I know like with Samsung there's like a power saving mode and there's like an ultra power saving mode so you're like really out there far away you don't want you you know a smart phone will just sit there and draw power even if you're not doing anything so make sure you put it in those ultra power saving modes and that will also help it to charge faster because it's not eating juice as you're charging right so who is this for in my opinion you know if you're not really concerned with you know having a phone or having a GPS system things like that you know if you know people that are go on long hikes that used Magellan gps's and things like that those things run on batteries some of them have chargeable batteries that you can charge via a USB like a solar panel or an external battery or your phone itself just using a GPS unit off of it or using your phone in the woods if you're not concerned with that this might not be for you so obviously you don't have to behind them you don't need them if you are somebody that it is interested in you know certain electronics in the field and if you're filming out in the woods especially like me and Chris are we need something that definitely will keep our batteries charged up in the woods when we are filming four to three days on and this is definitely for you you know this is like I said just a cheap way to charge things up this doesn't have to be charged before you bring it out to the woods you just unfold it start collecting UV radiation start charging your phone and there you go plus having other battery packs maybe to go along with it yeah like I said in the other video you know just having something in your wallet for an emergency like these little card batteries these little card batteries would be if somebody's not really necessarily concerned with having power in the woods and keeping the phone charged at all time so they can film stuff like that but if their phone is dead and they're in a little bit of trouble they can pull this out their wallet get an emergency charge on their phone get an extra mergency text out get an emergency phone call out hopefully you know this would be something to go along with these solar panels in my opinion just having that in my wallet at all times is you know a little bit of a security blanket I would not want to be your right ass cheek it doesn't it really is pretty thin doesn't doesn't mess with me at all you know when it comes to these battery packs like well it's talking about like say you've got an anchor battery pack or something like that and you're out in the woods and you have a solar panel make you so even if your phone's topped off then charge that Clark pack plug it into the battery pack and constantly be harnessing some energy so you can use it later yeah I mean we could kind of like Black Panther dude like he gets punched in these stores that energy it makes you like Black Panther Monday Google Play here they have better batteries in Wakanda okay he doesn't understand he hasn't seen it I seen the new there we go so now this battery is charging off the solar panel I think probably fully charged the green lights just indicating that another red light is on so it's indicating that it is charging so like Chris was saying you know you could for an extended time out in the woods be charging your battery packs and your phones I mean this says dual USB so both of them have dual USB so you could be charging two things at once just you're gonna decrease the time the amount of time that it takes to get a full charge even if you do get a full charge off these solar panels but I'm into them I've been using solar panels for quite a while we've had we've had him out in the woods before you know it very convenient way in camp to charge things up you know even on the go strapping these things on your back on the back of a pack or something like that and while you're hiking charging things up while you're hiking very convenient of course this doesn't this is actually solid but the way camera technology works you know through the cameras thing looks like it's you know spazzing out but it's just a solid blue and the the last solar panels that I had were the anchor ones and they did not have a voltmeter a digital voltmeter on it to let you know exactly what you get we got going so that is a really really really nice feature and I like how it's actually set up for because the different devices work differently with power inputs you've got one for Android or iOS and Android or one for Android so that's weird

but either way just having that voltmeter to let you know what's actually coming in and out of your solar panel has a very nice feature do you happen to catch how much these are I think the the 21 watt one was like 50 I want to say we'll put that on the screen here they're not very expensive at all be honest with you yeah I mean and that like I said this little one is 10 I literally just put it right into my haversack in between I mean this is these are one of those things that you know I would consider an actual and must have proper type item because it's renewable energy yeah I mean it doesn't cost you anything with this down start charging and like I said we don't have Sun right now you know it's completely overcast cloudy and we're still getting a charge so if you're worried about something like it well how does it work if you don't have the Sun direct sunlight pretty good alright guys well there you have it just a very short video on this these solar panels this in my opinion is a first look you know you just wanted to break these out test them out see what we're gonna get the next videos I'm gonna do and yes I'm going to continue doing videos on these I'm gonna take these out individually the 21 watt and the 10 watt and I'm gonna drain a phone down to 50% and just kind of sit these out and see how long it takes for me to get 50 percent battery until I get a charge I'm gonna set a timer up all that stuff really take these out and test them out hopefully with the some good son there's overcast I'm sure it's not living up to the solar panels full potential so look forward to those videos I hope you enjoyed this video and and if your phone's going dead hopefully you'll see will out in the woods mr.

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About the Author

William Myers MantisOutdoors

William Myers MantisOutdoors

Modern and primitive skills, fun in the woods and product reviews

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