Solar! – EVCHE EC-2110BTS radio

One reason I’m writing this is that a Google search for EVCHE EC-2110BTS returned no hits. We can’t have that!

I bought this AM / FM / SW / Bluetooth / MP3 player flashlight from AliExpress in hopes that the solar panel would be powerful enough to operate the radio directly, not just slowly charge the battery — and it does. In full sun the solar panel powers the radio at full volume.

Here are some of my observations:

1. The manual is 4 pages, most of which don’t tell you anything useful. For example, the radio has an AUX jack that’s never mentioned, nor is the solar panel. But it states twice: “Plase stop using the machine before switch on or off to the power.”
2. The radio is powered 5 ways: direct from solar panel, 18650 battery, 2 D cells (UM1), 110/220V AC power cord, 5V USB micro cable. A 220V power cable with a Schuko plug was included.
3. No unboxing video because there is no box. It’s in a shipping bag surrounded with ample bubble wrap.
4. It has just one SW band, 5.9-18 MHz.
5. The radio is big! It’s about 6 3/4″ wide, 5 1/2″ tall and 3″ thick including the folded down solar panel.
6. The radio arrived in good condition except that the solar panel mount was loose. I found out that the radio case underneath the mounting bracket had broken. The solar panel will have to be propped up to use.
7. The radio mutes while tuning on SW. I’m assuming that shortwave tuning is done in 5 kHz increments. This means that a tiny turn of the tuning dial mutes the radio, advances the frequency 5 kHz and then unmutes the radio. The result is a “chuff, chuff, chuff” sound while tuning the radio.
8. No earphone jack.
9. This sucker is loud. Most of the weight is in the 3W speaker.
10. The manual says not to take the radio apart, and the case is stamped with the same message. I took the radio apart (see photo following) to remove the rattling broken pieces of the solar panel mount.
11. The internal flashlight reflector had a big fingerprint on it. The flashlight is mediocre, and far less bright that the current breed of lights in emergency radios.
12. The AUX jack accepted both line and earphone level input OK.
13. The TF card can be at least 64G. Max not specified in the manual. MP3/WMA/WAV formats accepted.
14. Manual says it will operate > 300 minutes as a music player or > 500 minutes as a radio on one charge.
15. Bluetooth paired easily with Windows.
16. The tuning dial has a “scale” opening, but it it has no marking or numbers for the scale. I don’t think the designers knew what a scale is for.
17. It does not appear that the charging light goes off after charging is complete (at least not so far after 15 hours).

I think radio this might make sense as a kitchen radio since it can be AC plugged and the audio is quite good for music, plus you can get local radio stations during a power outage in the sunshine.

OK, Google, it’s up to you now.