on my next camping trip we will be trying to save a bit of money by camping and doing our own cooking. One of the downsides of this is that we probably won't have a ready supply of electricity to recharge anything. Since there are quite a few things I would like to be able to recharge I decided to do some research and see what might be practical.The first priority was a phone charger because I want to be able to speak to Hel while she is traveling France on her own. She bought a wind up charger just in case but it is quite noisy, heavy and very tedious. Most phones, ours included, need 5 volts to charge. Because my Zaurus (cross between a PDA and a laptop) also needs 5V so this setup would keep me programming on our travels too.There are several commercially available solar chargers, such as the Solio or Freeloader that would do the trick. I bought a Solio a while back and was very disappointed as it came with a voucher for a free charging tip which not only took several months to arrive but didn't come with the cable necessary to use it. After spending £50 and waiting for months I had hoped to have something that could at least be used for something, anything really. I eventually took the plunge and ripped apart the iPod cable that did come with it and put it to some use but I'm still not impressed.
JWP