Mobile phone charger - camping

[tkellylord]

Hi all,


I am currently designing a charger that can power your phone, ipods etc as part of a project. Wondered if it was ok to ask a few questions.


1. How many hand held devices do you take on your trip (phones, ipods, personal game consoles etc)?
2. Do you already have a means of re-charging them? if so what?
3. What kind of camping holiday do you take part in? (festivals, camping, cycling, RV, family etc)
4. How much would you pay for a charger that can power your personal devices?


Any other comments, thoughts or ideas are more than welcome!


Thank you if you can spare a few minutes to answer these questions


Tom

[East Coast Adventurers]

We use a 7Ah Sealed Lead Acid Battery in a box that has a Car Cigarette Lighter socket mounted in it. The internal connection between the two is via an in-line blade fuse / holder.

This can then be charged by a solar panel with a cig plug on the end though when used to run or charge mobile phones, GPS, satnav, torch, map / tent reading light and air bed pump it would probabbly last a good few weeks or more. It can then be charged by a mains charger at home ready for the next trip.

The parts cost about £25 + solar panel and mains charger at £25

I would pay about £45 for a ready made job - compact leisure battery. Ideally same capacity but lithuum iron for weight saving when on motorbike...

For us, we would not buy a charger though, just a power supply / compact leisure battery as above that we can connect our car charger leads to, I think a good multi use charger would be imposible because you would have to replicate all the IC controlled charging characteristics of all manufacturers which are specific to each varient of device! You would be better to wait until Splash power have sorted out their wireless chargers and OEM lisencing

Hope this helps and good luck!

[DaveS]

Hi all,


I am currently designing a charger that can power your phone, ipods etc as part of a project. Wondered if it was ok to ask a few questions.


1. How many hand held devices do you take on your trip (phones, ipods, personal game consoles etc)?
2. Do you already have a means of re-charging them? if so what?
3. What kind of camping holiday do you take part in? (festivals, camping, cycling, RV, family etc)
4. How much would you pay for a charger that can power your personal devices?


Any other comments, thoughts or ideas are more than welcome!


Thank you if you can spare a few minutes to answer these questions


Tom

1. Errrr ummm.... 2 X iPhone, 1 x iPad, 1 x Blackberry, 1 x Camera Battery Pack
2. Mains hook up.... or I use 12V chargers in the car, or a have a rechargeable battery pack thing which recharges most of them.
3. family, motorcycling
4. Around £10 - £20 with decent life in it.

[Megawitch]

I have an in car charger. But I also have EHU for longer stays or late in the year so I can charge with that.
My phone is the only handheld gadget I take and it's for emergencies only really and to let the family know I've arrived safely.

[Luiiz]

1 iPhone
1 nokia phone

Both of which we have incar chargers which cost us about 99p off eBay.

Do have ehu for longer trips - so standard chargers would be taken for then.

Louise


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[East Coast Adventurers]

1 iPhone
1 nokia phone

Both of which we have incar chargers which cost us about 99p off eBay.

Do have ehu for longer trips - so standard chargers would be taken for then.

Louise


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So no guesses who the I-Phone belongs to..

Just a word of caution though, cheap in-car charger can really damage your batteries making them last less longer with each charge. Considering a genuine Nokia Charger is only £5 (from Nokia, it's not really worth the £4.01 saving) Nokia UK - Nokia Mobile Charger - Overview

Happy Camping,

EC

[Kymmy]

Total fiction brought on by the phone companies

The chargers are regulated not only inside the charger but also within the phone itself.. As long as the voltages match then you'll be fine.

[CamperJamie]

1. Phone, Satnav, PSP, Coolbox, ipods, mp3's.
2. Cigarette lighter scoket with four socket extender
3. Festival and camping and Scout Camps
4. i paid £12.99 for mine but anything up to £20

Hope this helps!

[East Coast Adventurers]

Total fiction brought on by the phone companies

The chargers are regulated not only inside the charger but also within the phone itself.. As long as the voltages match then you'll be fine.

When you mention voltage, are you talking about the RMS ampiltude or are you expecting that the cheaper chargers output pure DC from their swichmode circuitry?

Also I wonder if you are suggesting that the charge current is regulated by the phone, the charger or both?

With a USB charger I would be inclined to agree that there is not much between them because these have to adhere to a standard and I beleive that this standard states that the device should be capable of telling the charger how much current it can take and the charger should be able to tell the device how much current it is capable of supplying.

Ontop of this I beleive there is a default of 500mA for USB devices that are not intelligent...ie the cheaper ones!! (So a cheap charger could in fact charge your phone at a much slower rate than a more expensive one )

I have delt a lot with Chinese companies and the classic I always here is - You want CE mark?? Yes, no problem, we have those stickers!!

ECA :thumb:

[Kymmy]

When you mention voltage, are you talking about the RMS ampiltude or are you expecting that the cheaper chargers output pure DC from their swichmode circuitry?

We are talking here about Car chargers so DC low end voltages (less than 15v) so RMS and switchmodes don't factor into it..



Anyone who knows anything about electronics should know that