Electronics on tour -- potential solution?
 

I was reading up on Gadget lab the other day and saw this.

Seems like it would be great for touring -- slap it on the top of your bundle at the back of the bike and you're good to go? Would certainly be great for my iPhone i reckon anyway. It's a big clunky at 8.5x14 and 24 oz, but lots of potential.

"With just an hour in the sun, the Joos Orange will generate (and store in its li-ion battery) enough power to keep you talking on the phone for two and a half hours."

"It will charge in low light, can be charged via USB if there really is no sun, and the polycarbonate and steel body is waterproof, meaning it’ll even charge underwater. When the battery finally dies after 1,000 cycles you can still power gadgets before the replacement battery turns up."

I'm curious to hear actual trials of people using this, but it sounds great for 100 bucks??

Source article: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/...l-than-rivals/

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/ga...tandalone.jpeg

1 1/2 lbs and the size of a lap top to get the energy in one rechargable AA battery? I'd rather carry a spare battery and charger. If you're near cell service you're probably near some kind of civilization with a 110v outlet to recharge things.

Thanks will be following this item's progress.

Blergh, I think in metric and didn't realise it was so heavy.

That said, you can't swap batteries in an iPhone and some GPS devices and they are still usable outside of cellphone range for features like GPS, Books/reading, whatever.

Anyway, much better than any other product on the market that is similar the moment I think.

Dynohub + Dahon Biologic Reecharge. Never doing solar again. BLech.

Is the Dahon Biologic Reecharge being sold to the public. It is march, and the company said it would be ready by now. Has anyone bought it?

The Roller Gen looks like a cool option:
http://cea.mblast.com/ws/wfaward/rsp...sionID=3849172

The roller gen looks like a neat idea. They don't offer a viable mounting point for tourists though - unless some of you tour without fenders.

Moving the generator around seems like a simple matter of wiring; one could also just cut a gap in the fenders with no loss of coverage.

There are a couple of other options. Use a 3 watt front hub generator and the new E-Werks from Busch and Muller.

The mBlast is interesting but they don't provide any specs that I can find.

Aaron:)

ditto, that looks neat

I am try out a new solar system, I bought a 14W rollable panel and will use it to charge my lapto via a 12V "cigeratte lighter" socket. I also have a 12V charger to charge 4 AA or 4 AAA batteries. The battery charger has a USB outlet, so I will charge my iPod and camers with the AA's. I am going on a 6 month tour, so this is a list of ALL my electronics and how I will charge them:

Netbook with oversize battery - direct from solar panel
Head light, tail light, flash light, all use AA or AAA batteries charged from solar panel
iPod - USB from AA batteries or computer
Camera - direct from solar panel
Phone - USB from computer or AA's

With a 14 watt panel even if half of it is in the sun, I still should be producing enough power to keep things charged. I will be on the Great Divide route, so 120 volt power will not always be avaliable. I am bringing a 120 volt charger for the laptop just in case, and the battery charger has a built in 120V adapter.


I have a journal at crazyguy with a few pics of the panel, and I will be paying close attention to how well this works, hopefully I never have to use 120V power. My journal is at
www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/klepper

Interesting set up. What brand of solar panel and where did you get it? I have seen several CGOB journals where people were using a variety of solar panels, many with decent success. I like the concept of the E-werks because most of the bikes I already ride have generators or generator hubs on them.

Aaron:)

I think that the key to electronics on tour is to keep them low power so you don't need lots of Watts to recharge them. So no Netbook for me. I take an iPhone and a small radio that runs on one AAA battery. The iPhone is my mp3 player, phone, blogging, email and web device. The radio is for all day listening as using the iPhone to listen to radio runs the battery down fast.

I've been thinking about keeping the iPhone charged and I'm looking at a MiLi power skin and a Power Monkey solar charger, or maybe the Surge which is a skin with a battery and a solar panel.

For various reasons, we need to take a netbook. We bought an ASUS Eee PC that has a 14 hour battery. Hopefully, this will get us through until we reach places that will let us plug in. In testing so far, the battery has lived up to claims.

I'm looking at the PowerFilm 5w solar panel:
http://www.amazon.com/Powerfilm-Watt...d=P5JDK0F83OA8

or the PowerFilm USB + AA solar charger:
http://www.amazon.com/USB-AA-Solar-P...d=P5JDK0F83OA8

Hi Eric. The panel I have is a powerfilm R-14 rollable. It is 14 w at 12 volt. I looked at the 5 watt foldable panel as well but I don't think it was large enough for me; it may be fine for you. Here is my math. My netbook battery is 7200 mAh at 11.1 volt. To get watt-hours, just multiply the 2 for a total of just about 80watt-hours. That it would take a 5 watt panel 16 hours of bright sun at a perfect 90 degree angle to fully charge just my netbook. It is impossable to ever get a full 5 watts from a 5 watt panel, due to shade, angle of reflection, internal resistance, etc. I have read a good guess is 80% of rated wattage in bright sun and less than that if it is cloudy, which means close to 20 hours just to fully charge the netbook in the best case senario. On top of that I also have everything else to keep charged, so I went with the 14 watt panel. If you are going to be in populated areas 5 watts might work just fine, but if you are going to be in more remote areas you might want something a bit bigger.

14 hours!! I am in a similar position. I am thinking of doing a tour of a few months and will need to take a netbook to work on. I have got an Acer aao and the original battery only lasts about 2.5 hrs. I recently bought a 9 cell for it and that gives 8-9 but I didn't realise just how big and heavy it was going to be. I am now wondering whether to bother with it or just take the original and acceppt that I will need to find somewhere I can plug in when I need to work which is only for a few days a month.

joe, your panel looks good. I will be interested to hear how you get on with it.