Coldhands

Hi all,

I want to wild camp as much as possible and I love my iPhone in the evenings to listen to podcasts and type emails to send out later when I find free wifi. I can also use it as a basic GPS unit and sometimes it's nice to use it as an ereader. My question is about power and I would like to hear from your experience. It seems to me there are three options;

1) Solar Power
2) Peddle Power
3) Portable Battery

Solar seems unreliable to me - although I will be cycling with plenty of sun I'm not to confident this option is the best but it is fairly cheap.

Peddle Power - fairly expensive, so I basically need a hub generator plus some sort of convertor. The Power Plug III looks really neat but it's very pricey. The other options look a bit goofy but they're much cheaper. Any recommendations? I'm on a budget here but I'll pay extra for something reliable.

The last option - I note a fairly portable battery would be good for 6 full charges of an iPhone. I'd say 4-5 days is about the maximum I can camp before I need a shower and to rest up in a hotel. This option seems like the cheapest/least hassle but the most dependent too.

Any ideas welcome!

10 Wheels

Enjoy the tour and take many pics to share.

350htrr

Solar is reliable if you buy a good one, (meaning expensive)...
Pedal power not enough for much more than lights and maybe a phone...
Best option for the moneys...

alan s 

I use an Anker 10-port charger, so only one outlet is required, to power the following USB devices:

Headlight(s)
Taillight(s)
2 battery packs (4800 mAH)
GPS
iPhone
drone (just kidding)

jefnvk

I like rechargeable power packs. I don't venture far from power for any length of time, though.

Happy Feet

I am trying out a portable solar panel (instapark mercury 10) with a back up external battery. I have tested it and get a full charge after about 4 hours. My plan is to charge the external battery during the day and the devices off it in the evening
My Samsung g5 charged from 35 to 100 percent in about 1 hour.

For bike lights I just use battery powered units and carry a spare set.

ypsetihw

get a solar panel, and use it to charge a backup usb jumper battery and your phone, this way you can use the jumper pack when your phone starts to run low. A jumper and my precharged phone was enough for me to run gps/strava for 105 miles, which I would imagine is more than you're doing in a single day. the solar chargers are pretty decent and cheap, and the jumper battery packs are cheap and pretty light too

Tourist in MSN

After half a dozen tours, when I built up a new touring bike I decided to invest in a dynohub. Very happy with it. But, it is not cheap. I probably paid $100 more for the dynohub than I would have for a conventional normal hub. A good USB charger that works with it might run anywhere from $90 to $120 USD, the $120 is for the Sinewave Revolution which I have been quite happy with. And that does not count the cost of rim and spokes. And cost of wheel building, but I build my own wheels so that was free. My hub is an SP PV-8.

I did not use a dynohub on my first two touring bikes, those bikes pre-dated USB charging, thus at that time a dynohub only served for lighting. But now it is getting to the point that a dynohub is more important for charging than for lighting.

I used to just try to find outlets in campgrounds, restaurants, etc. But I rarely wild camp so outlets to charge batteries were more common for me than for you.

Coldhands

A solar charger and a battery maybe - any recommendations? Amazon is full of junk these days and the reviewer system is corrupt :/

nun

I use an Anker 9000mAh backup battery.

It's compact and will recharge my iPhone 6 times. I top it up in restaurants, campsites and motels. I did the NT last year and it never got below half full.

There are simple strategies for conserving smartphone power like keeping it in Airplane Mode most of the time and I only use my iPhone for taking pictures and listening to music and podcasts during the day and at night will I go online on check email and blog. I also find that a small radio powered by a single AAA battery is very useful.

valygrl

if you eat in restaurants, you can charge during your meal. select a table with an eye towards outlets.

solar is unreliable

Happy Feet

Curious. Is solar more unreliable than depending on a possible power outlet being available in a restaurant, if you happen to find one?

My experience in Starbucks (for example) is that if one is available someone may already be using it more often than not.

Then do you go to a second diner and do you want the tour to be dependent on a need to find power outlets in diners. Sort of limits your travel choices.

Most people tour in summer so solar isn't that unreliable.

CliffordK

I got a little portable solar charger off of E-Bay.

It has a battery pack + solar panel.

As far as I can tell, the solar panel will never fully recharge the pack, even after weeks in the sun. It may, however, help hold it topped-off when not in use.

So, it is mostly a portable power pack which works reasonably well for a few charges.

350htrr

Only if you buy a cheap/crappie, solar panel...

350htrr

Yes, that IS the way most solar panels end up working... Unless one spends some big bucks/$$$, and gets a good one, I would say anything under $200 is a fail. JMO

350htrr

The thing with solar is that generally... The panels need/have to be deployed... for a certain amount of Hrs at 100% sunlight to give a certain amount of power that they are specified to give... Now, some panels, "will give" 50% of said power on a 50% cloudy day and others will give you, 0% power on a 50% cloudy day for all those Hrs that they are deployed, even if they are out there for Hrs and Hrs every day... Thus the dilemma, does solar work or is solar a fail...

Happy Feet

I dunno, if you are touring in Iceland in winter solar may not be the choice but most people seem to be touring during the summer season in sunny climes (?).

I've been playing with it on cloudy and sunny days in Canada and have been getting a charge. Bearing in mind that, with judicious use of the phone, one does not need to fully charge it every day. All one needs to do is charge the external battery and that will provide between 3- 6 charges of the phone (depending on the battery). So, you only need to acquire a full charge on the battery every 3-6 days... seems doable. added to that is the fact that you can bring a wall charger and take advantage of charges of opportunity when they are available. It's just that you do not need to depend on those opportunities.

I plan to strap it across the back of my rear panniers and go. The benefit of an external storage battery is that some devices will turn off and need to be rebooted if a shadow or cloud crosses the panels but not a storage battery so it is a bit of set and forget.

Here's my electronic array for the next tour (excluding the camera taking the picture).

boomhauer

I listen to Podcasts, internet radio, pandora about half the day and most of the night.

Having a dyno hub means you don't have to wait around in the middle of the afternoon for a few hours to charge your phone.

Continuous power while listening to streaming music.

I have a iphone 6 plus . It has a big battery so even at 50% charge it lasts most of the night.

Having a dyno hub hooked to a battery pack seems to be a waste of energy, in my mind. Charging a phone battery with another battery ....the horror!! you've just wasted 30% of the time it took to charge it.

Happy Feet

Every power source has its ups and downs depending on the type of tour you are doing. Some other things to think about:

If you are only going a week or so, or are reasonable close to civilization, you probably could get by with a usb wall charger and perhaps a storage battery. Both are pretty small items. If relying on a wall charger you have to consider finding an outlet and the time you need to stay in one place while charging. Some restaurants may not want you to sit there just so you can charge your phone/battery.

If charging in a campground you have to keep an eye on your phone. Maybe the outlet is handy, maybe it's in the washroom. Think about how you will babysit it (unless you are comfortable leaving a $500-$800 phone unattended).

A dynohub requires you to pedal. If your tour involves walking around, hiking or it's storming and you are tent bound you will not be charging. Same with solar too I suppose.

If I were in an urban setting I would probably go wall charger/storage battery.

If I were in a rural setting mild/variable climate I might choose dynohub/storage battery/wall charger.

If I were in a predominantly sunny clime I would go solar/storage battery/wall charger.

350htrr

Yea, and that looks good. |But this it the kind of stuff most people are talking about... https://www.amazon.ca/s/?ie=UTF8&key...l_80memtonh4_b

Happy Feet

Oh yeah, not the little ones.

I read up on several hiking, climbing, kayaking sites and looked at what they were using. Apparently it's not a new idea. The Ankor got good reviews and so did the Mercury. The battery received mixed reviews but it came with the panels so I will use it and see. I also chose solar over a dynohub because I do other activities and plan to use it for more than just biking.

bransom

If you do go with just a battery, get an Anker. They work and aren't very expensive.

Aushiker

On my Surly Long Haul Trucker I use a SON 28 dynamo (but a cheaper SP would do the trick) matched up to a Busch & Mulleur e-Werk. However my e-werk does not have a cache battery so I do carry a cache battery separately which I tend to top up during the day riding.

The battery is then used overnight in the tent to top up my Garmin Edge 810, LG G4 phone and Sony Xperia tablet etc.

Coming up I plan to tour on my Salsa Mukluk which does not have a dynamo. With this setup I am making use of my Garmin Oregon 600 instead of the Garmin Edge 810 as it uses AA batteries and I can mange the battery demands with more flexibility. That said I am taking a cache battery to do the toping up. I am expecting the cache battery to last me approximately six days, sufficient time between mains charging points.

I tend to not use the phone for anything but sending I am okay text (so gets turned on, text sent via my inReach for Smartphone, gets turned off). With the tablet I type up my days notes/thoughts only. I find I use ~10% battery per day so lasting a week is dooable.

My cache battery has been an Anker Astro E5 1,500 mAh but I have now purchased a RAVPower Portable Charger 6700mAh Power Bank which is more capacity but lighter than the Anker.

Yan 

I use this dynamo powered USB charger built into a headset cap: Cycle2Charge

It works very well and is cheap. Just keep in mind that most of us don't actually ride that many hours on tour. If your daily distance is 100km, that's about 5 hours of riding. At one amp, that will charge a phone, but not a tablet.

fietsbob

Pub Lunch, Charge stuff while you Eat there.