Touring - Portable Media (Ipods) Players & Batteries

I have an Iriver H10 (20 gig with the integrated battery). Do any of you bring along an mp3 player that dosen't take standard AA or AAA batteries. Do you have any methods to power them? I know theres an Ipod specific AA battery charger, but that won't quite work for me. I could probably rig up something with a generator, but I'm shying away from that for weight, complexity and price reasons.

I haven't been able to think of anything and figure I'll probably just end up taking a portable radio with me, but I figured I'd ask here anyway.

Are you going to be camping at campgrounds? If so, most laundry rooms I've come across have electrical outlets. You could charge up your player pretty well in the time it takes to do your laundry...


I have an Iriver H10 (20 gig with the integrated battery). Do any of you bring along an mp3 player that dosen't take standard AA or AAA batteries. Do you have any methods to power them? I know theres an Ipod specific AA battery charger, but that won't quite work for me. I could probably rig up something with a generator, but I'm shying away from that for weight, complexity and price reasons.

I haven't been able to think of anything and figure I'll probably just end up taking a portable radio with me, but I figured I'd ask here anyway.

I'm planing on trying to do this covertly.

I carry my iPod nano on shorter overnight trips. I made a small AA battery pack from Make Magazine's online store. It works pretty well for giving me a boost of a few hours if I need it.

On longer trips I take along a small Grundig AM/FM/SW radio. It's small, simple, and easy and provides just enough entertainment -- plus it gets local news for checking weather and traffic situations.

How badly does a standard portable radio chew through batteries?

Hey my.ark.4--
I just bought a solar charger (made by Solio--$75 US) that I haven't used much. I took it on one week long backpack and learned that it charges slowly and has to be positioned so it faces the sun perpendicular. Yeh---you have to move it as the sun transits the sky and this works best on a layover day. But, the good news is you can charge it via wall outlet @ motel, restaurant, truckstop, etc... and if you have to, accumulate the charges as you go. Then I just plug my Ipod into it and it will give me about 2.5X playing time.

Also see this---- http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=257589

Scroll down about half way and nebben gives directions for a homemade Ipod charger---(just use an iRiver car charger instead).

http://home.speedfactory.net/tcashin/ipodbattery.htm

I made the portable Band Aid box battery pack. It works.

I have an Iriver H10 (20 gig with the integrated battery). Do any of you bring along an mp3 player that dosen't take standard AA or AAA batteries. Do you have any methods to power them? I know theres an Ipod specific AA battery charger, but that won't quite work for me. I could probably rig up something with a generator, but I'm shying away from that for weight, complexity and price reasons.

I haven't been able to think of anything and figure I'll probably just end up taking a portable radio with me, but I figured I'd ask here anyway.

A simple circuit that would convert and regulate voltage to whatever your device needs could be done in an hour and would weigh next to nothing. Not to mention being cheap.

If you have a 12 volt battery system (Or generator) for lights, you could use a car charger for your device. That's the simplest way. :)

Otherwise anyone with a little knowledge and experience with electronics could help you build a charger from scratch.

Edit: Lots of ideas and info on that web page that's linked. :) Not to mention that if anyone makes an instant, disposable battery-based charger for your device then it should be trivial to modify that to work off any battery you care to provide. :) :) :)

I also have an Iriver but mine is the 1 Gig flash memory unit. It uses 1 (one) AA battery and a non-rechargable lasts about 2 full days (10-12 hours). I take an extra battery and when they run out, I stop at the next convenience store and buy 2 more.

Since I listen to books on my player, the 1 Gig is somewhat small (3-4 medium-sized books) for full-time listening on a three week tour (longest I've taken). However, I also listen to music (especially on up-hills) and often ride unplugged.

There is no reason to take a 20-Gig mp3 player on a bike tour, especially if keeping it charged is alot of bother. These days, smaller flash memory players are available. If you lower the sampling rate so that you can hear the music clear enough for bike riding (how much fidelity is enough with wind in your ears?), you can get a lot of music (and books) on a 1 gig player.

The convenience of using standard AA batteries far out distances lack of storage in my experience.

Ray

There's an ipod specific external battery pack that takes 4 AA's, I use that. It doesn't charge the intermal batteries, you just use the power from it. I think it's a Belkin. I usually manage to charge at a wall outlet (can do this at a restaurant, not just a campground) every few days, so use the AA thing every other day or so. I usually get about 2 riding days out of it. Sort of expensive, but very reliable.

Thanks for the recomendations, I think I'll just whip up the charger someone linked, I'm resonably proficient with a soldering iron, it dosent look too hard.

Thanks for the recomendations, I think I'll just whip up the charger someone linked, I'm resonably proficient with a soldering iron, it dosent look too hard.

Personally, I'd go with the one in the mint tin... it looks both more efficient and more flexible. (You can charge anything that would normally plug into a USB port)

Oh, my bad, it wasnt linked, it was linked to at one of the linked pages, that was the one I was going to do, the MintyBoost. Plus, I have a bunch of mint tins I need to put to use.

Depending how far you went looking at links... I saw a project I want to do SO bad... the POV project. Turns your wheel into a moving billboard. That would be SO cool. Imagine riding down the road at night with pics. Might distract people a little, but they sure as hell couldn't say they didn't see you! :)

http://www.adafruit.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=5&zenid=1beb7ccaa054c071a730c295c23df169