The Technaxx Foldable Solar Charging Case offers 21 watts of charging in a compact design ideal for use when you are somewhere far from an electrical outlet such as when camping or on the beach.
Technaxx recently sent us a review sample and we have been trying it out over the last few weeks to see how it performs here in Ireland, a country not known for its sunshine!
Design and Box Contents
Inside the box, you get the charging case and a user manual. The case has three solar panels and unfolds out on to one surface allowing you face them towards the sun.
Inside a sleeve on the front cover are two USB-A ports which allow you to hook up the devices you want to charge.
There are two holes in the case which will allow you hand the solar panels from something and that’s about it.
There is a fabric type cover used which is tough and should stand up to the rough and tumble of the outdoors. The product feels well built and the materials are of a decent quality.
How Does the Technaxx Foldable Solar Charging Case Perform?
The specs of the device claim a max output of 21 watts but this will of course be in ideal conditions. During our testing we’ve had just about every type of weather but only a couple of days where the sun shone brightly in a clear sky.
The user manual instructs that the device best performs when faced into the sun perpendicularly. You can roughly judge this by eye but it is much easier to find the optimal positioning if you use an energy meter in line with what you are charging, or in our case, we attached a battery bank that displays how much charge energy it is accepting. This battery bank is able to charge at 100 watts so we knew there would be no slow downs on its part.
Using the energy meter you can can generally gain 1 to 2 watts extra by fine tuning the position but it is not always easy to prop up the solar panels to the ideal angle so it would probably be worth investing in some sort of stand if you were to use this regularly.
As the earth rotates you also need to make adjustments to follow the sun if you want to get the most out of the panels but it takes very little effort to keep it on point.
In our testing with it during the month of April here in Ireland, in full sunlight on a day that reached 17 degrees Celsius with a clear blue sky, we were seeing around 15 watts being generated. To put that in context, the 26400mAh battery we were using was showing that it would take five and a half hours to charge from 25% to full at that input level. For most smart phones you would be looking at probably two to three hours for a full charge.
Conversely, on a cloudy day with no sign of the sun, the panels were generating 1 to 2 watts. Depending on the conditions you can achieve an output in-between these min and max values that we saw during our testing.
For best performance there needs to at least some sunshine in the sky and as the weather improves as we head into the summer I expect to be able to get closer to the 21 watts the panels can generate.
Conclusion
There is something quite satisfying about using solar energy to charge something, especially when you are on the go with no other way of charging. It is clean and relatively low cost with this device retailing for €99.99.
Ireland may not be most ideal location for solar charging devices but we found the Technaxx Foldable Solar Charging Case to perform well in the right conditions and as we come into the summer, if you plan on spending time in the great outdoors, it could be well worth picking up.
More information on the device is available here.
