Leica SL on Solar Power?

[CiraCrowell]

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Question - Does anyone know any tested solutions to charging the SL via a small solar setup? I will be completely off-grid trekking in Nepal for 5 weeks and everything must be backpacked or carried by mule.  The smallest unit that has worked is the Sherpa Goal Zero 100, but it only charges 1.5 batteries a day with full sunlight.  We have tried the Unipal (too unstable, fails after 3 charges), Bistek inverters (not compatible with the SL charger unit) and the Goal Zero Yeti (too much weight, 15lbs).  Second question - The S with multiple charging options was much easier to charge over a similar month long trek, why does the SL have so much less compatibility?

Edited September 3, 2016 by CiraCrowell

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[rriley]

You may not be able to directly power the SL charger using solar but perhaps a supplementary battery like the one in the link below could be recharged by solar.

 

If you locate a solution please let us know, and good luck on your trip.

 

https://lifepower.be/product/a2-25600-mah-portable-outlet/

[CiraCrowell]

Thanks rriley, will test the unit you suggested too... The Goal Zero Sherpa 100 does reliably charge the SL battery but a full charge (day and a half of sun) equals 1.5 batteries.  The unit you recommended looks much smaller.  The problem we have found is that the SL charging unit is far more sensitive than the M or S units so is not compatible with many otherwise reliable arrangements like the setups I listed previously.  

[mikemgb]

Is the problem that the Goal Zero doesn't hold enough charge to supply more than 1.5 battery charges, or is it that you don't have sufficient solar power to charge it fully?

 

Looking at the various battery capacities I think you should be able to get three charges or more out of a fully charged Goal Zero, or is that not the case?

[wlaidlaw]

I was interested that the inverter did not work. Any ideas why? I was going to buy a Ring inverter - this one https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ring-RINV120-Compact-Inverter-laptops/dp/B002XDERD8/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1473107525&sr=8-3&keywords=Ring+inverter for charging my SL batteries. I am going on a two week classic car rally through fairly remote areas of Myanmar in November. I know it is quite common for the smaller hotels we will be staying at, to turn their generators off at night, if they are not connected to mains electricity and if they do have mains electricity for there not to be power points in the bedrooms. 

 

Wilson

 

PS I have asked Andrea at Leica to find out for me if the SL charger will work on a square wave inverter like the Ring and most small inverters or whether it needs the larger and more expensive true sine wave inverters. I will report on this thread when I get an answer. 

Edited September 5, 2016 by wlaidlaw

[dgktkr]

I was interested that the inverter did not work. Any ideas why? I was going to buy a Ring inverter - this one https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ring-RINV120-Compact-Inverter-laptops/dp/B002XDERD8/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1473107525&sr=8-3&keywords=Ring+inverter for charging my SL batteries. I am going on a two week classic car rally through fairly remote areas of Myanmar in November. I know it is quite common for the smaller hotels we will be staying at, to turn their generators off at night, if they are not connected to mains electricity and if they do have mains electricity for there not to be power points in the bedrooms. 

 

Wilson

 

PS I have asked Andrea at Leica to find out for me if the SL charger will work on a square wave inverter like the Ring and most small inverters or whether it needs the larger and more expensive true sine wave inverters. I will report on this thread when I get an answer. 

 

 

Some time back I purchased https://www.amazon.com/Tripp-Lite-Inverter-Charging-PV100USB/dp/B012E9GVWA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473173803&sr=8-1&keywords=tripp+lite+inverter+100w and, so far, it has worked well. It is a modified sine wave unit. A picture of the waveform is shown in a previous thread http://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/259568-12v-power-inverter-for-sl-battery-charger/. 

 

Before purchase, I inquired with Leica USA and they said modified sine wave units were OK; pure sine wave ones were not required.

 

dgktkr

Edited September 6, 2016 by dgktkr

[wlaidlaw]

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Some time back I purchased https://www.amazon.com/Tripp-Lite-Inverter-Charging-PV100USB/dp/B012E9GVWA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473173803&sr=8-1&keywords=tripp+lite+inverter+100w and, so far, it has worked well. It is a modified sine wave unit. A picture of the waveform is shown in a previous thread http://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/259568-12v-power-inverter-for-sl-battery-charger/. 

 

Before purchase, I inquired with Leica USA and they said modified sine wave units were OK; pure sine wave ones were not required.

 

dgktkr

 

Many thanks. The Ring 120VA inverter is very neat and currently (no pun intended) at half price on Amazon UK. The Pure sine wave ones are much bigger and three times the price. 

Wilson

[wlaidlaw]

We don't have an "official" answer yet from Leica, as everyone is on holiday. However one person at Leica reported that he is using a AEG modified sine wave inverter and it works perfectly with the SL charger in his car. 

 

Wilson

 

PS. Since we know that AEG inverters work, I have stuck with them but gone for a smaller version of the one that the person at Leica is using. I have bought this one https://www.autoteilemann.de/p/501167/aeg-spannungswandler-umwandler-12-230-volt-150-watt-si150-97110/ 

Edited September 7, 2016 by pop
Fixed link

[steppenw0lf]

We don't have an "official" answer yet from Leica, as everyone is on holiday. However one person at Leica reported that he is using a AEG modified sine wave inverter and it works perfectly with the SL charger in his car. 

 

Wilson

 

PS. Since we know that AEG inverters work, I have stuck with them but gone for a smaller version of the one that the person at Leica is using. I have bought this one https://www.autoteilemann.de/p/501167/aeg-spannungswandler-umwandler-12-230-volt-150-watt-si150-97110/ 

 

Hi Wilson,

that link is not working. Can you name the brand and type instead ?  (Maybe also of the one the Leica person is using)

 

Thanks.     Stephan

[wlaidlaw]

Hi Wilson,

that link is not working. Can you name the brand and type instead ?  (Maybe also of the one the Leica person is using)

 

Thanks.     Stephan

 

Stephan, 

 

The guy at Leica is using a AEG 97115 Spannungswandler ST 500 Watt because he also runs various other items off it like computers etc. I did not need anything like that power so I have opted for a AEG Pocket Voltage Transformer Si 150, which has a capacity of 150va but with a safety margin for short periods of 300va. This is more than enough to handle the 26va SL charger. www.autoteilemann.de were by some margin the cheapest I could find for this inverter and about half the UK price. 

 

Wilson

[pop]

 

that link is not working. 

... now it is.

[steppenw0lf]

... now it is.

 

No it isn't. Don't ask me why. (And your entry is just not helpful, as usual., so stop this.)

 

Read the result:

Oops, leider scheint diese Seite derzeit nicht zu existieren.

 

Edited September 7, 2016 by steppenw0lf

[ramarren]

 

No it isn't. Don't ask me why. (And your entry is just not helpful, as usual., so stop this.)

 

Read the result:

Oops, leider scheint diese Seite derzeit nicht zu existieren.

 

 

Seems to work fine for me. 

[wlaidlaw]

Seems to work fine for me. 

 

BTW off topic but I see those autoteilman.de people, from whom I have ordered the AEG inverter, are selling Ad-Blue diesel car urea additive at a fraction of the price that you pay Ford, Mercedes or VW - €7 for 10L. I can't remember what we paid for it for my wife's previous Ford Coupé from the Ford dealer but it was a whole lot more than that. We don't use it now as she has switched to a petrol Abarth 595. My son who uses it in his Hyundai iX35, asked as it was a urea additive, couldn't he just pee into the Adblue tank instead 

 

Wilson

[ramarren]

BTW off topic but I see those autoteilman.de people, from whom I have ordered the AEG inverter, are selling Ad-Blue diesel car urea additive at a fraction of the price that you pay Ford, Mercedes or VW - €7 for 10L. I can't remember what we paid for it for my wife's previous Ford Coupé from the Ford dealer but it was a whole lot more than that. We don't use it now as she has switched to a petrol Abarth 595. My son who uses it in his Hyundai iX35, asked as it was a urea additive, couldn't he just pee into the Adblue tank instead 

 

Wilson

 

 

Oh great, adding just that little perfume to the usual diesel stink ... 

[pop]

 

No it isn't. Don't ask me why. (And your entry is just not helpful, as usual., so stop this.)

 

Read the result:

Oops, leider scheint diese Seite derzeit nicht zu existieren.

 

 

The link in Wilson's post #8 opens a page showing the particulars for a device called "AEG Spannungswandler Umwandler 12->230 Volt (150 Watt) SI150 - 97110". It did not do that before I removed some superfluous characters from the link. If you don't find that helpful, the problem lies with you.

 

And do mind your manners, please.

[jaapv]

 

No it isn't. Don't ask me why. (And your entry is just not helpful, as usual., so stop this.)

 

Read the result:

Oops, leider scheint diese Seite derzeit nicht zu existieren.

 

 

I think you need to check your browser settings, it works perfectly. I think it is rather helpful that pop fixed the link.

 

 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

 

 

[wlaidlaw]

I think it depends on what browser you are using. Safari seems to work oddly on this. Sometimes you get to the correct company but get a "404" error. Sometimes you get to the company but get a quite different product - today it is an offer for windscreen wipers. I think this is the reason for the confusion. 

 

Wilson

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[jaapv]

It all depends on the security settings of your browser. Safari went haywire on my laptop last year and I did not waste my time to look into it.

This morning your link is fine, but it refuses to upload images to the forum. Or rather, it does upload them, but then I need to switch to Firefox manage the attaching. Strangely enough it works correctly on my MacPro. I have not bothered to sort it out.

But anyway, the problems are on the user side.

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

[pop]

I think it depends on what browser you are using. Safari seems to work oddly on this. Sometimes you get to the correct company but get a "404" error. Sometimes you get to the company but get a quite different product - today it is an offer for windscreen wipers. I think this is the reason for the confusion. 

 

Wilson

It's not all that difficult.

 

Your original link (https://www.autoteilemann.de/p/501167/aeg-spannungswandler-umwandler-12-230-volt-150-watt-si150-97110/ /) includes two extra characters at the end: some kind of white space and a slash.

 

This causes the browser to send the request to the correct server (www.autoteilemann.de), but that server can find neither a file nor a directory which is called (some kind of white space) at the designated place. Hence, it issues an error message, saying that it can't find the page. The error message has the error code 404, as is the case with all web servers. It's part of the specification of the http protocol, if that's of any use to you.

 

I removed those two extra characters from the end of your link (and tested the resulting link to see whether the server could resolve it, which it could); this yields the correct address: https://www.autoteilemann.de/p/501167/aeg-spannungswandler-umwandler-12-230-volt-150-watt-si150-97110/ which in turn fetches the desired page.

 

I did not, however, touch the copy quoted by the steppenwolf. So there are two versions of that link in this thread: the malformed one in steppenwolf's copy and the corrected one in your original post #8.

 

Every browser which can be said to work will not produce a "meaningful" result with the malformed link, because the "oops"-page is the proper page to show for the server. Also, every properly working browser will show the proper page with the repaired link, namely the page describing the Spannungsumwandler.

 

I tested this with four different browsers. Given the same links, they all do the same.

 

It's frightfully easy to catch a couple of characters too many when copying and pasting internet addresses. I happen to fix a couple of those every week in this forum; it's a kind of SOP.