Solar Chargers

There are solar chargers for cell phones, iPods, even laptops. These are clearly ideal if you are going somewhere where there is no power, and you need to recharge your favorite electroic gadget.

What about home use however? If you charge your device from solar, does the panel embody more energy to make it than you will even save from the grid? What about using the grid at night when demand is low and the devices need power anyways? I think my power comes from Nuclear during the night, so it would make no sense for me to get solar chargers, but I find it very interesting, and maybe helpful for others.

Of course, if you have them for when you can't get access to the grid, and you use them at home, you are saving energy (or really, generating your own).

Most of those solar chargers don't have a big enough of a panel to be useful unless you have 12 hours of full sunlight. I'm looking at solar charging my "toys". I'm going to buy a small panel and mount it on the roof, then a small charge controller and SLA battery. During the days while I'm out at work the solar will charge that SLA battery then when I come home I plug in my cell phone or whatever and charge from the energy stored in the SLA battery, this way the cell phone charger can have enough power to fully charge the phone weather or not the sun goes behind a cloud. I would have it working now but the price of the panels has went way up recently.