Remote battery charger/booster for GPS

[mattsccm]

I'll post this side as the GPS types are helping me with another topic.
My Garmin Edge 800 only has a limited battery life. Fine most of the time but I know it won't last for an anticipated 5 day camping trip in the Scottish hills.
Has anyone got a personal favourite booster pack. The sort of thing that stores charge and can dump it to the GPS or, heaven forbid I carry it, phone.
I must admit I like the idea of those that use AA's as they are easily replaceable whereas something that recharges won't last for ever. I do suspect that AA types may not give as good results though. I need enough oomph to, lets say, recharge the 800 twice at least
Any suggestions? Lets assume that the GPPS is running at its most economical as well.

[freiston]

Do you mean a power pack to charge your Garmin via the USB port?

I use a power pack predominantly for my phone but also for any other USB chargeable device that I might have with me. The one I have is a Intocircuit Power Bank 11200mAh - it's about the size of a cigarette packet and I think I can get about 5 charges of my Samsung S5 mini; charging when the phone says anything up to about 25% battery left (though usually when it hits single figures). The unit can output at 1.0A or 2.1A, has a useful (but I couldn’t say whether it is accurate) LCD power display and a small LED torch built in (not that I've ever used it as a torch). I'm sure there are others who will be able to give better answers as to capacity and charging ability based on maths and electronics. I like the unit and do feel more secure knowing I have it when away from mains electricity. The batteries seem to hold their charge well when not in use too.

[mattsccm]

Yreah, one of those. Or the A type things.

[53x13]

B & M stores sell a 10,000mah battery to charge USB devices for £14.99

[RickH]

The 800 has an 1100mAh battery so, allowing for losses, you probably need around 1500mAh capacity for a full charge after around 12 hours of use. If your days are likely to be shorter you won't need a full charge each day, so you may get away with allowing 1000mAh per day, plus extra for longer days to work out the capacity you'd need for the Edge (plus, of course, extra for other gadgets which you can work out on a similar basis).

I've got a 20,000mAh pack but which I'm generally pleased with but I did find it failed to charge my phone one time recently (when the phone battery got critical). I think it was being over optimistic with its remaining charge levels as I'd just charged my GPS & a garmin VIRB camera (that I'd already run directly off the pack for a while that day). I wasn't too far from civilisation so it wasn't too crucial. If I was buying now I would probably go for 2 lower powered packs to reduce the risk of total failure. The other thing I would look for is recharging times, as mine is quite slow at recharging which combined with the relatively high capacity means it takes a long time to get from low to full.

A multi USB main charger (for when you do have access to mains electricity), especially one that will put out 2A on more than one connection, is also a useful addition to the power armoury.

Hope that helps.

Rick.

[bainbridge]

After a bit of research I bought this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Upgraded-Anker ... B00D5T3QK4

Weighs in at 300g and from fully charged gives 3 full charges of my Garmon touring and a full charge for my phone, all from one charge. This enables me to be away for 4 days without needing a PowerPoint.

Fast charging rate and comes in a nice protective bag, very happy with it.

[timdownieuk]

I'll post this side as the GPS types are helping me with another topic.
My Garmin Edge 800 only has a limited battery life. Fine most of the time but I know it won't last for an anticipated 5 day camping trip in the Scottish hills.
Has anyone got a personal favourite booster pack. The sort of thing that stores charge and can dump it to the GPS or, heaven forbid I carry it, phone.
I must admit I like the idea of those that use AA's as they are easily replaceable whereas something that recharges won't last for ever. I do suspect that AA types may not give as good results though. I need enough oomph to, lets say, recharge the 800 twice at least
Any suggestions? Lets assume that the GPPS is running at its most economical as well.

If you're not in a hurry (and have money to burn), https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ez ... ower-plant

[freiston]

If you're not in a hurry (and have money to burn), https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ez ... ower-plant

Crowd funded for $300, runs on LPG and a 3 second squirt from an aerosol can will give 11 phone charges; says nothing about ignition?!?!?!?! They also offer "renewably produced LPG produced by conversion of renewable power to gas (P2G)".

Edited £ sign to $ sign

[bikes4two]

I've tried different power packs (aka cache batteries) and for a lot of the cheaper Chinese ones the milli-amp-hour (mAh) figure can be misleading.
Let me give you an example of a supposed 20,000mAh Chinese power pack: inside it were three batteries connected in series to give the right voltage for conversion to USB voltage, Each battery was about 7,000mAh, hence the claimed 20,000mAh capacity. Without getting into any electrical theory stuff, the capacity of the whole unit is 7,000mAh NOT three times that figure!

The easy answer is to get a reputed brand - from other postings on this forum I bought a PORTAPOW device from Amazon for £15 and believe me, it will re-charge your Garmin 800 at least 4 times and have power left for your phone too!

Good luck

[timdownieuk]

If you're not in a hurry (and have money to burn), https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ez ... ower-plant

Crowd funded for $300, runs on LPG and a 3 second squirt from an aerosol can will give 11 phone charges; says nothing about ignition?!?!?!?! They also offer "renewably produced LPG produced by conversion of renewable power to gas (P2G)".

Edited £ sign to $ sign

I paid a lot less, I think $99 as a backer. Don't actually have the product yet but that's part of the fun. It's a fuel cell so no ignition needed. Standard lighter refill is all that's needed.

If it takes off commercially I would expect the price to come down considerably.

[PH]

After a bit of research I bought this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Upgraded-Anker ... B00D5T3QK4

Weighs in at 300g and from fully charged gives 3 full charges of my Garmon touring and a full charge for my phone, all from one charge. This enables me to be away for 4 days without needing a PowerPoint.

Fast charging rate and comes in a nice protective bag, very happy with it.

I've had an earlier 1300 version for a couple of years, more as a back up than anything else, used on phone, Garmin and USB light, all worked fine. The real advantage for me is I'm happier to leave this charging out of sight than I would be any other device.

[PH]

I need enough oomph to, lets say, recharge the 800 twice at least

I haven't used mine in this way, but some on long Audax rides have the external battery connected from the start, rather than run the Garmin down then recharge. If I understand it right, when you disconnect the power pack the Garmin is still at full charge, so when the PP is empty you at least know how much Garmin use you have left. So not a question of how many time you can recharge, but how long the Garmin runs, which shouldn't be too hard to determine.

[andrewjoseph]

We use a powergorilla (https://www.powertraveller.com/en/shop/portable-chargers/professional/powergorilla/).

keeps two garmins, and two phones topped up for about 5 days before needing recharging itself.

[hamster]

Avoid the cheapest power packs - they use secondhand batteries inside reclaimed from scrapped laptops.

[Samuel D]

Panasonic makes or made a round tube holding two AA cells that allows charging of devices that recharge via USB, such as your Garmin. See eBay item number 161349679593.

Using the Ah unit for energy capacity does not make sense. I wish companies would stop doing that. The relevant metric is Wh.