Does anybody use a dynamo to charge up a phone/gps etc?

[MockCyclist]

£50? What for?

I made my own out of a 16a blue three pin plug, the type that motorhomes use, available from electrical factors, half a metre of 3-core and a 13a trailing socket. Sometimes the power outlets have to be activated by someone who wants money, sometimes they're always on and who would imagine someone in a tent would want a hookup?

 

[summerdays]

I've just found a campsite that offers electric hookup.

£6 for a pitch

£7.50 for a pitch with a hookup.

Wouldn't mind staying there in my one person tent lol. £1.50 seems very good for electricy each day. I gather I'll need abit of kit to use the hookup but on a bike I've no idea what.

I've not gone down the electric hook up route when I go family camping (with car), but as far as I know its about £60+ for the proper kit which is a chunky extension board like thing with all the correct circuit breakers etc and a long lead. Campers without the proper equipment can be refused permission to hook up to the camp supply. It would be easier to ask the office to charge your phone yourself.

 

[summerdays]

£50? What for?

I made my own out of a 16a blue three pin plug, the type that motorhomes use, available from electrical factors, half a metre of 3-core and a 13a trailing socket. Sometimes the power outlets have to be activated by someone who wants money, sometimes they're always on and who would imagine someone in a tent would want a hookup?

Lots of campers in tents want electric hook up... you would be surprised what things some folk take with them including TV's, computers, hair dryers, microwaves, fans, heaters etc... sometimes I wonder why they want to go camping (and how they fit it all in the car - ours is always full with just the normal sleeping bags, mats, etc).

 

[Woz!]

We regularly take one of those little fan-driven fridges when we go camping with the car. It all started when we had our first kid and we needed somewhere to keep his milk cool.
There's something nice about having milk and butter available when you get up for breakfast

 

[Minky]

Here you go: http://www.ikonglobal.com/

 

[RedBike]

Here you go: http://www.ikonglobal.com/

Neither of the two UK distributors link to from their site seem to sell them?

 

[Butterfly]

I used to have a dynamo phone charger. I bought it online somewhere. It worked pretty well, by putting power to a thing like a cigarette lighter socket, which you then plugged a car phone charger into. I don't know if it would work with other car chargers like gps. Probably would.

 

[spiro]

I used to have a dynamo phone charger. I bought it online somewhere. It worked pretty well, by putting power to a thing like a cigarette lighter socket, which you then plugged a car phone charger into. I don't know if it would work with other car chargers like gps. Probably would.

The $64,000 question is were did you buy it?????

 

[spiro]

Here you go: http://www.ikonglobal.com/

I contacted CAT who are listed as a distributor and they said Ikon Global was dissolved in 2006 and the website is a leftover. Just need to find out if anyone else picked up making this useful product.

 

[simon_brooke]

Thread hijack: Iceland

However on our recent tour to Iceland a couple of sites asked for a charging charge of about 300kr per item. This worked out as just over £2 per item which I thought was very steep considering the low current consumed by these items.

Thread hijack

Where in Iceland did you go? What quality were the roads, and what tyres did you use/would you recommend? What mobile phone coverage did you find - widespread, or very patchy?

I was last in Iceland nearly twenty years ago and the rural roads weren't great but I hear they're much improved in many places(?)

 

[bike_the_planet]

If you know someone with a bit of electronics knowledge and a soldering iron you could get them to help you build one.

This site here gives you some ideas on how to do build a USB charger from a dynamo.

For those with some knowledge, virtually all dynamos can provide 6V at 0.5A (around 3W), if that helps.

There's also this off-the-shelf device from Australia. Disclaimer: I haven't tried it so I cannot tell you whether it would work well. But it should in principle.

It looks as though they use the dynamo to charge a 3.7V LiPo battery which, in turn, can charge your phone, iPod, etc. This battery pack option is the same one used by some of the solar chargers such as the Solio

For camera charging you really need a 12v source (if you have a 12v cigarette lighter type charger adaptor for you camera). High ouput generators such as the Schmidt SON28 could be used to do this with an inverter circuit.

Hope this helps,

 

[CycleTourer]

Thread hijack

Where in Iceland did you go? What quality were the roads, and what tyres did you use/would you recommend? What mobile phone coverage did you find - widespread, or very patchy?

I was last in Iceland nearly twenty years ago and the rural roads weren't great but I hear they're much improved in many places(?)

Hi Simon,

Apologies for not replying to your post earlier, we were actually back in Iceland at the time. This was our third visit, there is a travelogue of our first visit here
and last years is here although we have only posted part 1 so far.

85% of route 1 is now tarmaced and quite a few of the main roads particularly in the SW are tarmac, however the majority of the roads including the interior and smaller roads are still gravel.

We used 45mm wide Schwalbe marathon XR's which were very tough, however we could have done with wider tyres for the more sandy parts of the interior, although there is a pay back on wider tyres when you are on tarmac.

Mobile phone coverage has improved dramatically in the last 3 years as the Icelandics like using them. This year we had far better coverage well into the interior, you will find a map of vodafone's coverage here and Siminn's coverage here .

As you can see it is nearly 85% coverage with only some mountain ranges and some valleys which still lack coverage. The area south of Landmannalaugar is still bad.

Cheers

Jon

 

[simon_brooke]

Hi Simon,

Apologies for not replying to your post earlier, we were actually back in Iceland at the time. This was our third visit, there is a travelogue of our first visit here
and last years is here although we have only posted part 1 so far.

85% of route 1 is now tarmaced and quite a few of the main roads particularly in the SW are tarmac, however the majority of the roads including the interior and smaller roads are still gravel.

We used 45mm wide Schwalbe marathon XR's which were very tough, however we could have done with wider tyres for the more sandy parts of the interior, although there is a pay back on wider tyres when you are on tarmac.

Mobile phone coverage has improved dramatically in the last 3 years as the Icelandics like using them. This year we had far better coverage well into the interior, you will find a map of vodafone's coverage here and Siminn's coverage here .

As you can see it is nearly 85% coverage with only some mountain ranges and some valleys which still lack coverage. The area south of Landmannalaugar is still bad.

Cheers

Jon

Thank you very much. My idea is to land at Seydisfjordur and head north to Hraunhafnartangi north of Raufarhofn; and then back by Grimsstadir - it looks from those maps as though I'll have phone coverage most of the way. I'm planning on taking a trailer, so have the possibility to take two sets of tyres, one for tarmac and one for gravel. Obviously weight matters, but seeing I'm taking full camping kit anyway an extra couple of tyres are not that big a deal!

 

[CycleTourer]

Thank you very much. My idea is to land at Seydisfjordur and head north to Hraunhafnartangi north of Raufarhofn; and then back by Grimsstadir - it looks from those maps as though I'll have phone coverage most of the way. I'm planning on taking a trailer, so have the possibility to take two sets of tyres, one for tarmac and one for gravel. Obviously weight matters, but seeing I'm taking full camping kit anyway an extra couple of tyres are not that big a deal!

I don't mean to put you off but just to prepare you, the climb out of Seydisfjordur is a tough one. The ascent to the top is 650m (2,132.ft) of hard climbing and the road is steep and most of it is of a gradient of 1 in 10! It was our first introduction to Iceland and it nearly put my wife off Iceland! Fortunately Iceland isn't all like that, what time of year I you hoping to go?

 

[just jim]

Annnnyway, roughly back on track with some stationary power generation this time - pedal powered generators