Goal Zero Nomad 50 Solar Panel - Portable - 50 Watt - USB

Video Transcript for Review of Goal Zero Portable Chargers - Solar Panels - GZ37FR

Ellen: Hey everyone. I'm Ellen here at etrailer.com and we're going to be taking a look at the Goal Zero Nomad 50. This is a compact solar panel and it's going to help you to get power, even if you're off the grid. This works with a lot of the other Goal Zero accessories, including the Yeti and Sherpa power packs or power stations. So it can give you that power pack or that power capability, even when you're far away from any kind of grid.The panels are foldable, so they stow under your arm or stow in any kind of compact area pretty easily. And then it folds out to have our four monocrystalline panels.

The monocrystalline cells are going to give us the most efficient conversion of solar energy into electricity. So you can rest assured that it's going to give you the power that you need. So you can see that foldable design, we can kind of stack it or set it up however we need to so that it's going to catch all the sun's rays.And something I like about this as well, is that it is weatherproof to an extent. So if it happens to kind of start sprinkling on these panels, it shouldn't be an issue. You don't really want to dunk them in any kind of water, but they should be able to withstand any kind of light misting rain and things like that.

So if there happens to be a little sudden shower while you're out in the wilderness, shouldn't be too big of a deal.You can also daisy chain these panels together with two other Nomad 50s. So you can get up to 150 watts. You don't want to exceed that much power, that'd be a little bit too much for any power pack to handle. And if you do plan on doing two or more panels together, you want to make sure that you're using a power station that can handle that much input. You don't want to overload anything.

So make sure that it can handle at least a 100 watts, if not 150. So you might need to get one of the bigger ones if you plan on doing that.The way that you're going to daisy chain them together if you do want to decide that to do that or just to get the power connection is by using these cables at the back. They are attached. I kind of like that they're also sitting in this little mesh bag, so you can stash any other kinds of cables back here to have them readily available. Kind of keeps everything from flapping around and has it right there where you need it to be.So this green guy, it's going to be our USB.

We can plug in any of our accessories, our devices right into the panels themselves. So you can directly charge your laptop, camera, your phone, speaker, whatever the case might be that you want to charge. You can also use this one too like I said, daisy chain other panels together. So you basically take this cable from the other panel, plug it in here and this is going to be our connection or output to either a different panel or our power station.So this cable measures six feet long. Can see that eight millimeter round connector. Might be kind of hard to see, but should match up with something that looks like that. And they are labeled. There are some little directions here on the back as well. So the best way to orient your panel is so that it's sitting upright and facing the sun. You don't want to have this laying flat on the ground. It'll still work, but you're not going to get the best power conversion from that. And if you have it facing away from the sun, you're not going to be able to convert those sun rays. So something to keep in mind there.Store everything up, zip up that pocket and there is a second pocket as well. So if you want to grab an extension cord for that eight millimeter cord, you can stash it in here. Maybe some other USB cords or any other accessories that you want to go with this, can go in that little pocket. Something I really like about Goal Zero's stuff is that they just make everything look really cool. It all works really well. It's really thought through.I think the usability of their stuff is just really nice. You can see all these little loops on each of the panels at each corner and at each fold. So if you want to hang this, you can or attach any kind of attachments to it, to get it to be in the right spot for you. If you want to maybe straddle between some trees or something like that or maybe some poles or something else, you can have those help you to do a lot of different things.It's also pretty lightweight, just weighs a little under seven lbs. So nothing too terribly heavy. Some of the other portable solar panels that I've seen out there are not nearly as easy to handle. They're going to be big and bulky and pretty heavy as well. So the fact that you can just tuck this guy under your arm and weighs about the same as a laptop is pretty cool. And it gives you a lot of power as portable as this guy is.For those specs, the numbers, the USB port gives us five volts up to 2.4 amps of output or 12 watts max. The eight millimeter port goes between 14 and 22 volts up to 3.3 amps. And the power rating for this is 50 watts. Again, you can daisy chain it up to 150 by getting three of these panels and connecting them together. Monocrystalline cell structure, so that helps us to get that efficient power conversion.The size when it's folded is 17 inches by about 11 and a quarter. And with those cables and everything is about two and a half inches at the max for the thickness. When it's unfolded, it is about 53 inches wide. So a little over four feet. I'm going to double-check that just to see. So we go from the very edge OF one side to the other. I'd say it's actually closer to 51 inches long, maybe 51 and a half. So about four feet, three inches. Same height and thickness is not really going to change too much.The main thing that causes it to be thick on the backend is that cable all bundled up. So on its own, it's maybe an eighth of an inch thick. We'll measure it again when it's folded. So here, it's about an inch thick. So again, really nice and portable. It has a one year limited warranty. I think this is going to make a great addition to your camping setups, so you can have that power wherever you want to go and never be without any of your devices charging.That's it for me. I hope this video has been helpful in deciding if this is the right panel for you. Thanks for watching and we'll see you out there on the road.