DarthVaper Posted October 2, 2009 Share Posted October 2, 2009 Not a review of an e-cig per se, but of an accessory. Okay, living in upstate New York, I can expect at least two full-on power failures at my house during the winter season. Like many of you, I want to be prepared so I'm not jonesing for my nic fix while lighting up the oil lanterns and trying to boil water in the fireplace. So I bought the solar e-cig charger at ecigarettescanada.com. Looked pretty straightforward: Charge it up in the sun, connect e-cig battery charger, charge up battery, repeat. Should work great as long as the power doesn't go out at sundown. Out of the box and I hit the first problem: A sh*t-ton of connectors and wires, a wall plug (?) and the worst 'Engrish' written instructions I have ever attempted to decipher. I mean, c'mon, it features instructions like this gem: "Charging 60 minutes, the charger could transfer the energy form the build in battery to your mobile phone battery, and could talking 100-150 minutes." Okay. So I mess around for an hour trying to figure out how to connect it to my e-cig charger, and find out that there is no connector for a Joye 510 battery charger. Then I have to go online and research other sites that sell the solar charger to see some picture of it connected via cables to a 510 USB battery charger. Which I don't have. So I had to order one. A few days later it arrives. I connect it to the solar charger and put in the battery and it actually works (finally). It charges one battery in about an hour. Great, Although I have no idea WHY it works, because the light on the side of the solar charger is RED when it's ready to charge something and GREEN when it's not. Okay, so now I've charged a battery, I put it in the direct sunlight. The LED is neither green nor red, but off completely. I leave it in the sun all day. Nothing. Zip. Nada. So then I attach it to the wall plug (yeah, I know, I attached a solar charger to a wall plug :rofl: ). The wall plug ITSELF has LED's on it, two of them in fact. One is red, one is green, and they both light up when you plug it into the wall and stay that way indefinitely. The LED on the solar charger turns GREEN. I'm so freakin' confused. It's been hours since I plugged it into the wall, and the solar charger LED is still the same green color. And as I said, the "instructions" are all but useless. So my review can be summed up briefly: I don't get it. This is also a call for help. Anyone else spend the money on one of these? Have you been able to make it work? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bzeisman Posted October 2, 2009 Share Posted October 2, 2009 sounds like the charger for my camera. while charing, two lights are on. when its doneonly one light is on. a solar charger that plugs into the wall......hmmmmmmm maybe the solar feature kicks in when the power is actually out, otherwise its a regular charger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Posted October 2, 2009 Share Posted October 2, 2009 Sounds like...a total piece of crap to be honest. Now that you have a USB charger though you could always look into a power pack. Like this: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9050073&st=usb+battery&type=product&id=1218012516869 Not sure how good that is or what the best power back is as I've never used one. Just an idea. I think something even better would be a inverter that goes into your cigarette lighter to charge your ecig battery. (ha, who knew) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vacker1229 Posted October 2, 2009 Share Posted October 2, 2009 Sounds like...a total piece of crap to be honest. Now that you have a USB charger though you could always look into a power pack. Like this: http://www.bestbuy.c...d=1218012516869 Not sure how good that is or what the best power back is as I've never used one. Just an idea. I think something even better would be a inverter that goes into your cigarette lighter to charge your ecig battery. (ha, who knew) This is the one i use and i love it but i am a little biased as I used to work at Kensington. http://files.acco.com/KENSINGTON/K38021US/K38021US-usconsumer.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthVaper Posted October 2, 2009 Author Share Posted October 2, 2009 Thanks for the replies, everybody! bzeisman: I know, totally puzzling. Chris, I think you might be right and this is just cheap crap. It has a cheap look and feel to it. I don't want to knock the vendor (ecigarettescanada.com), because they responded very quickly to my e-mail requests for assistance. The link to a Lithium-Ion battery looks really good, and doesn't cost much more than what I spent on this piece of poop. Vacker, I'm also interested in the link you posted, but it only took me to the home page, not the actual product. Can you try attaching the file? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keenan Posted October 3, 2009 Share Posted October 3, 2009 Sounds like you bought from the same company that sold me those fu@*#ing "Magic Beans" TheSmokingMan 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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