We will take a look at a solar EDC kit good for outdoors, urban & travel situations. Now I’m sure lots of you have solar panels and battery packs, but we don’t talk about the system around them often. If we do, it’s within an emergency context.
I don’t think that’s a good idea. Those who end up using their solar panels will probably know that you got to use the gear in order to be familiar with them and know how things will react and how much time it takes to charge and under which circumstances. Keeping your panel in an emergency kit and never using it is not a great use of the tech.
So I decided to put together my EDC solar kit, which is basically assembling all the cables I would need to charge up my primary device and my secondaries given the situation if I’m outdoors, urban or traveling.
Dig around your junk drawer to get your kit together. You’ll be surprised what you have lying around.
So that means, that I’ll be relying on a solar panel + battery pack system. New products come out almost everyday, so make sure you comment on what gear you use. I’m just showing what I got.
So my requirements were the following for this kit:
- fits in my day pack
- charge up my primary device
- can top up devices that don’t need a daily charge.
- suitable for outdoors, urban & travel situations
So I ended up with the following:
- Goal Zero Nomad 7 solar panel
- Goal Zero Guide 10 battery pack (only because I still have AA battery devices)
- Nomad Key for my iPhone
- Apple Lightening cables
- micro usb cable
- mini sub cable
- iPod shuffle
- mic to mic jack
- related cables for the iPod and Nomad 7
- AC USB plug
- cigarette lighter USB port
So basically I got everything I need for my devices and if some one i my party needs it, I can accommodate.
Now what? well it’s all about when do you need to charge your device? You have enough flexibility to top up your device either via solar, battery or from a running source like a car or from the utility lines.
The kit fits in your day pack easily so you can use a component as you like.