Brando Multi Solar Charger review (Verdict: Avoid)
Excited by a pocket solar charger with a built-in battery, I ordered the Brando "Mulit" solar charger as soon as I'd blogged it. It arrived, I glanced over the instructions, and threw it in my kitchen window, which faces South. It sat in the sun for a month, its little blue LED indicating it was charging.
I just plugged my iPhone into its USB out. Nothing. Doesn't trip the voltage on the phone's charger. I stuck a multimeter into the USB port. Just using the multimeter instantly drained the solar charger's battery. I had to plug it into my laptop's USB to give the charger a little juice.
You can see that it's nothing fancy inside, nor should it have to be, but something's not right on this one. Perhaps it's charging its little 1350mA battery during the day then somehow losing the charge at night? Whatever the problem is, it's not worth finding out. I'll save the $25 unit for parts, but I'd suggest you learn from my mistake. (It seems I'm not the first to run afoul of Brando's sub-par solar designs.)
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i seem to recall that all those chargers first need to have their inner battery fully charged by an external power source.
the low voltage charging by the solar cell can't charge a fully depleted battery.
I find these things usually don't work as well as advertised. I bought a similar one from Dealextreme and it had the same problem. Cheaply built and never seemed to charge very well in the sun. When I finally decided it wasn't worth it I harvested the solar panel, 1350mAh Lion cell, and 555 timer. At least it was only $20.