mobile phone chargers

[RussellEngland]

Just received a price list from Pedalpower - doesn't include delivery prices from Australia though
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p51LODxxPy9YMzuYiEQvAdQ

Just as an aside - I love the Centre for Alternative Technology and would highly recommend it for a day trip.
http://www.cat.org.uk/

 

[andym]

Cheers Russell. they're probably going to be wondering why they've suddenly got people from the UK asking for price lists.

The prices seem pretty good value - if it works OK.

 

[RussellEngland]

He he Well, I'm fairly new to touring and am quite surprised there isn't already something widely available for a dynamo mobile/pda charger. And I'm not techy enough to build my own charger, so would prefer to use an existing product. I am hoping to travel to some remote places and probably won't always have electricity handy.

I'd like to use my N82 to take photos with the GPS location, track my route, keep some notes for blogging, play a bit of music, as well as keep in touch - all the reasons I had it for but I have to charge it every day which renders it useless for travelling. Or I might try a different phone, like a Blackberry with GPS - they seem to have a much longer battery life. Or abandon the GPS on the phone and get the SPOT http://www.findmespot.eu/en/ and use my old mobile for txting which lasts over a week with regular use.

 

[andym]

Russell

I think the findmespot is a great device, but primarily for calling for help- in places where there's no mobile phone. It may not be the best device if you simply want to track a route. backpackinglight.com did a review of it when it first came out and the reviewer was quite critical of its tracking ability. You might find that simply getting a 'proper' GPS is the best solution - you can then just turn on the phone when you need it.

Equally, you don't need a phone with GPS - there's plenty of software about that will work out the location of a photo by comparing the data in a gpx track with the exif data in the photo file (although it helps if you have the right time set in your camera).

 

[RedBike]

might try a different phone, like a Blackberry with GPS

As far as i'm aware no phone/PDA will run a GPS program for more than a couple of hours.

The battery on my XDA will last most of the week (left on standby) if I only send the odd text message. It only lasts 3/4 hours if I use the GPS though.

I have a freeloaded. It's alright for topping the phone from it's pre-charged internal battery. The freeloader would probably take a month (not joking) to charge the phone by solar power alone though.

I also have a wind up torch that doubles as a phone charger. It's alright as a torch but I would be there all night winding the thing in order to charge the phone enough to make a call.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

I used a Solar Monkey for the past few months and it worked very well for a basic mobile phone (mind you, that was in a country with plenty of regular sun, not here!).

 

[RussellEngland]

AndyM

Thats really good advice - of course comparing the time with gpx will position the photo... durr... I haven't got much common sense I'm afraid

I've got a decent digital camera but haven't used it with gpx, this will be great. So now... which gps? %) I've seen some reviews on here for GPS, but I don't really need it for navigation. Just tracking the lat/long and altitude would be nice. But then again, if that pedalpower works for my mobile, it would be ideal... I've been quite impressed by Nokia SportsTracker

 

[andym]

I've seen a number of people recommending the Nokia Sports Tracker, but I can't see how it would work without having the GPS running - which takes you straight back to the problem of battery life. Personally I'd get a Garmin HCx. A couple of AA batteries will last two days - and while you think now that you just want a basic tracking device you might well change your mind later (ie when you get lost and curse the fact that you don't have something that tells you where you are).

 

[rualexander]

Busch & Muller make a 'Ride & Charge' accessory for their Ixon led lights, which allows you to recharge the AA batteries in the Ixon light from any 6v hub or bottle dynamo. I suspect that you don't really need the Ixon light and that an AA battery holder would be adequate as the electronics are in the Ride & Charge unit which mounts on the front forks.
If you also had a AA battery to phone adapter this could be useful for your purpose as well as recharging AA batteries for many other uses.
However I cannot find anywhere that actually sells this device at the moment other than Peter White Cycles in the USA.
Here's a link to some information on it :
http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/PDFs/B&M Ride&Charge Inst.pdf

 

[RedBike]

What is involved in charging batteries from a dynamo?
A 6v hub will charge 4 AA batteries (4x1.2v=4.8?)

Presumably you'd need a rectifier to covert the hub from AC to DC.
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Search.aspx?criteria=rectifier&source=15

Some Diode so the electric only flows from the hub to batteries and not vice versa.
(Think the rectifier should also do this).

And the current will need to be limited to save frying the batteries.
http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?moduleno=8067
From here
http://www.reuk.co.uk/Solar-Battery-Charger-With-LM317T.htm

And lastly some electronics expert to tell me how the heck to put all this lot together!

 

[bike_the_planet]

What is involved in charging batteries from a dynamo?
A 6v hub will charge 4 AA batteries (4x1.2v=4.8?)

Presumably you'd need a rectifier to covert the hub from AC to DC.
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Search.aspx?criteria=rectifier&source=15

Some Diode so the electric only flows from the hub to batteries and not vice versa.
(Think the rectifier should also do this).

And the current will need to be limited to save frying the batteries.
http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?moduleno=8067
From here
http://www.reuk.co.uk/Solar-Battery-Charger-With-LM317T.htm

And lastly some electronics expert to tell me how the heck to put all this lot together!

A diode is a half-wave rectifier.

But what you have to be careful of are two things:

1) Most generators will supply considerably more than 6v if you're steaming downhill at, say, 70 kmh. The SON literature warns of excessively large voltages at very high speeds. Hence some kind of voltage clamp, such as a zener diode to bleed excessive current away.

2) NiMh batteries, the most common rechargeables, have to have their charging current limited due to gassing. If this is not done, excessiving gassing can occur which will damage the batteries. This is opposite to the old lead-acid batteries which have to be charged at a near constant voltage. The maximum continuous charging current for an NiMh cell is a function of the capacity (milliamp-hours). It varies between 1/10 and 1/40 of the capacity depending on the manufacturer.

If all this is gobbledy-gook to you, then either find a geeky friend or see if you can source something on the internet.

Cheers,

 

[psmiffy]

Andym - thats exactly how i do it synchronise clocks on gps and camera - half the time I can't remember exactly where I have been (one disadvantage of not planning an exact route) - check the time/location of track and that is where the mystery photo is - of course if I had the time and that sort of mentality I would geotag them - waiting for good quality waterproof gps camera weighing 100g, uses one AA every 7days and costing less than £100 (Ricoh do a nice one but its nearly £600)

My vista hCx does the job nicely as an all day tracker - 2AAs every 2 days - compass to keep me going in the right direction and street level mapping for groping my way around places like Lyon

 

[psmiffy]

Back to the origonal thread - has anyone actually any experience of these dynamo based charging devices - if they work it would probably push me over the edge into some heavy investment in dynamo (its going to happen anyway, just a quetion of when)

 

[nigelnorris]

As far as i'm aware no phone/PDA will run a GPS program for more than a couple of hours.

The battery on my XDA will last most of the week (left on standby) if I only send the odd text message. It only lasts 3/4 hours if I use the GPS though.

Just an aside wrt using a phone for GPS. I have an n73 and use a separate bluetooth GPS receiver. This combination runs for a couple of days easily without recharging. I presume removing the GPS power load from the phone battery sorts that end out of it out.

Doesn't help the OP since this lengthened battery life is traded off against now having two things to charge instead of one [and the receiver has a pita proprietary connector so no chance of getting it powered up by an off-the-shelf charger], but for long days out/weekend use it's great.

http://www.mobymemory.com/products/MobyMemory/Bluetooth-GPS-Receiver-+-2-in-1-Charging-Kit.asp

[oh hang on, I just saw in another thread someone say that it's the display that kills battery life. Never occured to me that anyone would look at the screen tbh, too small. I just use an earpice and get directions verbally, the phone itself is locked and in my pocket so no display of any sort.]

 

[caminsk]

i got one of those...

http://www.decathlon.es/ES/linterna-dinamo-5774511/

it does a good job.

its a dynamo torch that comes with a cable to recharge mobiles and other stuff