This post details how to use our solar chargers for specific drones. We explain how to connect from our battery to each drone and set expectations for charge times. If you have questions about a drone that is not listed here, feel free to reach out to us directly.

NOTE: Many of these drones require a lot of power to operate for a relatively short amount of time. We recommend that you review the specifications and make the appropriate choice for your particular application.

Charging Drones from an External Battery Pack

In general, the easiest way to charge a drone battery is by connecting our V88 laptop battery to a car charger designed specifically for your drone’s battery. You can often find third-party car chargers that are much less expensive than the ones sold by the drone manufacturer. In the case of DJI Mavics, the DJI branded car charger may not work because of their voltage restrictions. If a car charger is not available for your drone, you must use a LiPo battery balancing charger or hack your drone’s charging cable to connect to one of our Voltaic cables (you risk over-charging the battery since there is no circuitry to balance the drone battery cells, so proceed down this path at your own risk).

The recharge numbers below include the loss that occurs when you transfer power from one battery to another. In addition, we see the car chargers unfortunately wasting energy as heat.

Charges from Voltaic Battery Pack (V88)

Solar Charge times for V88

DJI Mavic 2

The Mavic 2 is (thankfully) relatively easy to charge from our V88.

The 59.29Wh smart battery used to power the Mavic 2 charges from the car charger supplied by Mavic using the 12V output of the Voltaic V88 battery. It draws approximately 6 Amps.

DJI Mavic Pro / Pro 2

The Mavic Pro and Pro 2 are compact and lightweight, and have a much smaller battery than the Phantom series DJI drones. However, there are some tricks to charge their Intelligent Flight battery.

The 43.6Wh smart battery used to power the Mavic has a minimum current threshold that is required to reliably charge it. In addition, the DJI branded car charger has a acceptable voltage range of 12.7 to 16.0 Volts. The V88 outputs 12.1 or 12.2V on the 12V setting and 16.2V on the 16V setting…just out of range.

We recommend this 3rd party charger for the Mavic Pro and this one for the Mavic Pro 2.  The ones without the USB output integrated in the car charger seem to work best. Here is a picture of the setup.

DJI Mavic Air

The Mavic Air Battery is only 27.4 Watt hours. It charges by connecting to a car charger to a V88 battery and we expect to get about 2 full charges from the V88.

We have not tested the DJI branded car charger yet, but its voltage specifications are more relaxed than the Mavic Pro. It is stated as 12.0 to 16.0V – any feedback on this would be appreciated.

DJI Spark

The Spark is DJI’s latest and smallest drone. DJI claims a 16 minute flight time from the 16.87 watt-hour battery, which you can charge from the USB port on any Voltaic battery pack using the micro-USB to USB cable included with the Spark.

Estimated Spark Battery Charges

Head over to our newest drone post to learn more about charging your DJI Spark from solar.

Phantom 4

The Phantom 4 was the first drone from DJI with automatic obstacle avoidance and visual tracking of its target. It boasts 4K video resolution, 28 minutes of flight, and 44mph top speed. By using the Phantom 4 Car Charger, its 81 Wh battery (15.2V 4480mAh) will get about 75% recharge from our V88 battery.

Check out this video or this video of Voltaic customers charging their Phantom 4’s.

Phantom 3

The Phantom 3 is the most diverse single product in DJI’s lineup, as you decide between the Standard, Advanced, Professional, or 4K model of the Phantom 3. Check out DJI’s comparison page to see the differences between Phantom 3 models.

By using the Phantom 3 Car Charger, the 68 Wh battery (15.2V 4480mAh) will get about a 85% recharge from our V88 battery. There are plenty of third party car chargers on Amazon or eBay for the Phantom 3 and we’ve even hacked a cable from the DJI standard charger when there was no other option.

Phantom 2

The Phantom 2 is an entry-level drone for beginners that is much less expensive than other Phantom models. It has a smaller battery than the Phantom 3 or 4, so by using the Phantom 2 Car Charger with our V88 you can get a full recharge for the 58 Wh battery (11.1V 5200mAh).

DJI Inspire 1

The Inspire 1 uses a monster 130 Wh TB48 (22.8V 5700mAh) or 100 Wh TB47 (22.2V 4500mAh) rechargeable battery. Fortunately there is an Inpire 1 Car Charger available through DJI that can provide the pure sine wave necessary to recharge this battery.

Unfortunately since these batteries are so large, you will not get a full recharge from our V88 in one sitting. The TB47 will fill up around 65% from a full V88, and the TB48 will fill up around 50%.

Yuneec Breeze

The Breeze is a relatively inexpensive drone that still boasts 4K video performance, though only 12 minutes of flight time. No car charger currently exists for the Breeze 12.8 Wh battery (11.1V 1150mAh), but you can use an 11.1V LiPo battery balancing charger with a 12V input from our V88 to get over 3 full recharges.

Yuneec Typhoon H / Typhoon 4K

Typhoon drones come standard with car chargers, so no additional purchases are necessary. The Typhoon 4K 60 Wh battery (11.1V 5400mAh) gets approximately an 83% recharge. The Typhoon H has six propellers instead of four for more stability and load carrying ability. It’s 80 Wh (14.8V 5400mAh) battery will get about a 75% recharge from our V88.

Parrot Bebop 2

Bebop 2 is also relatively inexpensive for casual drone users, and while it does not shoot 4K video it can be piloted directly from your cell phone. Even though no car charger exists for this drone, you can use an 11.1V battery balancing charger with a 12V or 16V input to get about 2 recharges to its 30 Wh battery (11.1V 2700mAh).

3D Robotics Solo

3DR Solo uses a GoPro to capture video similar to the Phantom 2. Currently, there is no car charger available for the Solo, but we have successfully hacked a Solo charging cable to our V72 (predecessor to the V88) output cable to charge the battery directly. Pictures attached below. Contact us directly for more info about this solution, as it is very possible to accidentally plug in the cable backwards and fry your battery. You can also use a 5V-9V regulator cable to charge your Solo controller.

Hacked Pics for 3D Robotics Solo

Hacked Cable Pics for Phantom 3

There are many Chromebooks on the market so we couldn’t do tests or provide specs for all of them, so feel free to use the table below as a reference for your own laptop to see how you’d expect it to perform. On a sunny day, any of our 10 Watt Systems (Fuse 10W, Array) will provide about an hour of runtime for every hour in the sun. Our 17 Watt systems can provide over 90 minutes for every hour in the sun.

For reference to see how Chromebooks stack up against other laptops and tablets you may want to take with you, see the chart below. Runtime per every Watt hour of capacity is in the same ballpark as a MacBook Air and a bit worse than a typical tablet (assuming the specs manufacturers runtime specs are accurate…feel free to adjust if you have first hand information on runtimes).

Advantages of traveling with a Chromebook

One of the main advantages of traveling with a Chromebook is their energy efficiency. They are small (screen sizes of 11-13 inches) and light so they can be easily thrown in your backpack. They are not as energy efficient as large tablets, but they offer almost all of the advantages of a laptop that many tablets do not provide (such as USB ports, a SIM-card slot for pictures, a comfortable keyboard, and a larger screen).

Another advantage of using a Chromebook away from the electrical grid is their low price. At a starting price point of $200, you could reasonably justify buying one just to protect your main laptop by leaving it at home while you travel.

Additionally, the distinctive feature that separates Chromebooks from any other on the market is their cloud-based software, so your files are automatically backed up through Google’s cloud services whenever you have access to WiFi. That means you’ll never have to worry about loosing your files if your laptop is lost, stolen, or broken while traveling abroad.

Disadvantages of traveling with a Chromebook

The small hard drive capacity (8-16GB) almost requires frequent backups online if you are gathering lots of pictures or videos, which presents a serious problem if you are miles away from a reliable WiFi network. Additionally, when you temporarily have access to a WiFi network it may take a long time to upload all of your new pictures and videos (if you have several gigabytes worth). The storage problem can be solved if you bring your own external hard drive or SD card to hold your files.

Another drawback is the limited suite of apps and programs that work with Chromebooks. While there are many apps and programs that are specifically designed for Chromebooks to satisfy all of your average computing needs, there may be specialty programs or software that you need for your trip that is not compatible with them.

Conclusion

If you plan on powering your electronics exclusively from solar power, consider only bringing a tablet if a laptop is not necessary. Using a tablet will save you money, weight, and storage space for both the device itself and the solar charging equipment necessary to keep it powered. If you want the keyboard and laptop feel, Chromebooks have some major advantages over other laptops such as price and weight, though we recommend bringing an external hard drive with you to store all of your pictures, videos, and files while traveling abroad.

If you’ll be frequently traveling around with all of your gear, consider using our Array Solar Backpack or Fuse 10W Solar Charger to hold and charge your laptop. If your belongings can stay stationary in a relatively safe area, consider using the 17W Solar Charging Kit to power your devices in much less time. For proper use, make sure you match the voltage of the V88 to the voltage of your Chromebook’s AC charger as closely as possible (it should be clearly labeled on your Chromebook’s AC charger), and charge the laptop while it’s asleep or turned off to stretch the battery capacity of the V88 even further.

*Battery life times are estimates based on manufacturer specifications, and will vary based on many factors including screen brightness and program usage.

**Solar charging times are estimates based on ideal conditions, and are subject to change based on cloud cover, temperature, and angle of the panel towards the sun.

They brought along our Array Solar Charger to power 2 DSLRs, GoPro, Panasonic Toughbook and Sat Phone. They said, “The backpack was really useful, an impressive powerful.”

For the bike lovers, they put 4,000km on two Royal Enfield bikes through mostly 4 wheel drive tracks and several of some of the highest mountain passes in the world.

You can read more about their trip on their blog or reach out to them about guiding an adventure.

He says, “All of these photos are what I call ‘solar end to end’ meaning the camera batteries, laptop & iPad were charged prior to heading into the field for a day of shooting. Mostly because I wanted to prove to myself it could be done as I aim to become a more un-tethered photographer. The downloading, editing and uploading of these photos to my site were also all run on that same power source. No AC power was used at all!

Another key aspect for me in using this pack is it allows me to fire up my laptop and ‘proof’ photos on the spot without the worry of a power source. Having my 17in screen available to me while on location is a huge win. Now I can confirm I got the exact shot I wanted in larger resolution rather than rely on the back of a small LCD screen. This is huge!”

Or read our guides on solar charging your MacBook or camera.