Charging on tour

[pjclinch]

Been a while since we toured, so long ago that we didn't have anything that needed charging! But kids have grown up and moved out so we'll be back on the road this summer with a couple of smartphones that will need juicing.
Each bike has a SON hub we'd like to use for power, and we have some power banks that could be charged instead of the phones, if that would help. Suggestions and/or pointers to summaries welcome!

Ta, Pete.

[Jdsk]

I fitted a B+M lamp with a USB output.

There's a lot that's obvious but here's what I wish that I'd known beforehand.

1 That B+M lamp isn't reliable. I've had two failures.

2 A 16,000 mA h USB battery pack can charge all of our devices for several days. (Two iPhones, Garmin Edge 1000, audio headbands, Kindles.) Having two output sockets can help.

3 The Garmin is a lot happier charging from the battery pack than from the dynamo.

And one observation from elsewhere in the forum:

4 If you have two battery packs then one can be charged while the other is being used.

Jonathan

[keyboardmonkey]

Been a while since we toured, so long ago that we didn't have anything that needed charging! …
Ta, Pete.

I asked a similar question. Some responses here may be useful… viewtopic.php?t=147124

[pedalsheep]

This video from the Virtual Cycle Touring Festival may be worth a watch
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XZvkSPwUHmI
(I haven't watched it myself yet!)

[Greystoke]

Go to poundland and buy a car fag lighter usb charger, wire -ve (outer sprung parts) to dynamo frame connection and centre sprung pin to dynamo +
It'll then charge a usb battery pack.
Thats what i use

[pjclinch]

Thanks for the above everyone, will dig further...in the meantime, any comments on the B&M e-Werk, which seems to be their offering at present?

Ta, Pete.

[MrsHJ]

I take a short electric hook up when travelling with son. Less hassle than spending hours in the bathrooms trying to charge stuff for him.Obviously not all sites have hook ups where they direct cyclists to park up but I’d rather sit in the sun on our pitch charging than worrying about stuff getting nicked from bathrooms.

I do find that most camp hosts will happily charge up power banks etc safely in reception so you don’t need to rely on the bathrooms. I’ve had several years of use (not intensive) out of my power monkey and it’s proved to be a good investment. It has a solar panel which isn’t great- maybe they’ve improved? I don’t really do enough to make investing in a hub for charging worthwhile.

[Jdsk]

Go to poundland and buy a car fag lighter usb charger, wire -ve (outer sprung parts) to dynamo frame connection and centre sprung pin to dynamo +
It'll then charge a usb battery pack.
Thats what i use

That's interesting. Have you ever measured the output voltage of the USB charger in real-world operation?

Thanks

Jonathan

[simonhill]

Pete you don't say what your accommodation is or what you will be using your phones for.

I use my phone lightly during the day and stay in hard wired accommodation overnight. No need to charge at all on the road.

[Psamathe]

For OP: where are you planning on touring? and how long cycling each day? (I assume not B&B/hotel accommodation - which is easy)
Reason: I tour EU mainly France, Belgium, Germany and NL, camping and certainly France weather is a lot sunnier. For charging (GPS, phone, tablet, camera, Kindle, etc. and I use them a lot, uploading photos, updating personal website, creating routes for tomorrow, loading route to GPS, etc.) I get my electricity from a solar panel https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B012VL20GW that I put out only once at campsite. I'll ride early for 4'ish hrs so plenty of time at campsite to charge stuff. I also use two rechargeable packs https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B072MH1434 so if all devices charges the battery packs can take extra energy and provide a buffer for overcast days. This arrangement is generally enough but a few rainy days in a row and things (battery packs) can start to get a bit low. So I also take a USB charger as many campsites have a mains socket somewhere - though I rarely use it. On a couple of occasions I've left USB mains charger and one battery pack in shower block overnight (a risk but f they are stolen not a massive financial loss).

Many campsite offices offer to let you leave stuff on charge overnight in their office but I've never done this as I prefer getting up earlier and dapart early and don't want to wait around for the office to open to collect my stuff.

Some campsites have loaned me a mains hook-up cable for free (not a normal mains socket) for free "just leave the adapter on the door handle when you depart").

The use of a mains socket is a rare exception as even northern not as sunny countries (northern DE, NL) I'm still mostly OK with solar panel alone.

But my pattern of use has a lot of devices that are used a lot and time for the solar panel to charge them after arriving at destination and in countries with good sunny weather - so might not work for everybody.

Ian

[Slowtwitch]

Always use a solar charger, which can be conveniently hooked to a tree or an outside wall in a hotel ect. The current generation really do decent 2A charging. Enough for a tablet and a phone

[Vorpal]

There have been previous discussions with related information
viewtopic.php?t=148493
viewtopic.php?p=1657695 which also has links to some of the others already linked on this thread
viewtopic.php?p=960480

Some discussion here, as well
viewtopic.php?p=1246915#p1246915

[pjclinch]

Our MO for the planned tour is cycle-camping on formal sites in Belgium and N France/Brittany, smartphones used as internet provision so planning, admin, cartography kind of stuff. We're not making movies or writing blogs or anything whizzy. Our phones have big batteries (5K MaH) and we'll generally only need one at a time. Sometime between two and three weeks. Also topping up Kindles for another not-huge requirement.

Mainly thinking of using the SONs as we've already got them and they'll be turning for a few hours most days, but don't anticipate needing lights much.

Pete.

[Jdsk]

Our MO for the planned tour is cycle-camping on formal sites in Belgium and N France/Brittany, smartphones used as internet provision so planning, admin, cartography kind of stuff. We're not making movies or writing blogs or anything whizzy. Our phones have big batteries (5K MaH) and we'll generally only need one at a time. Sometime between two and three weeks. Also topping up Kindles for another not-huge requirement.

Mainly thinking of using the SONs as we've already got them and they'll be turning for a few hours most days, but don't anticipate needing lights much.

Thanks for the detail.

I wouldn't (and don't) use a solar charger for that sort of trip. (But I'm interested in the improvement in performance and thanks for the model numbers above.)

Our biggest consumption is by the Garmin satnav used in turn-by-turn mode and you're not doing that.

With two USB battery packs and staying at sites with mains electricity I suspect that you won't need to charge from either the dynamos or the sun.

Jonathan

PS: I hope that some replies on the eWerk appear...
https://www.peterwhitecycles.com/ewerk.php

[Psamathe]

Our MO for the planned tour is cycle-camping on formal sites in Belgium and N France/Brittany, smartphones used as internet provision so planning, admin, cartography kind of stuff. We're not making movies or writing blogs or anything whizzy. Our phones have big batteries (5K MaH) and we'll generally only need one at a time. Sometime between two and three weeks. Also topping up Kindles for another not-huge requirement.

Mainly thinking of using the SONs as we've already got them and they'll be turning for a few hours most days, but don't anticipate needing lights much.

Pete.

(My bold and colour)
My understanding is that over your intended duration the size of the phone batteries is only relevant as a "buffer" but to keep working you need to have enough charge in to match the power used. If you charge slower than you use then even big batteries will slowly discharge - how long the "big batteries" last depends on the difference between charge vs use.

"Big batteries" would be helpful for a weekend but a few weeks and you can be sure you'll get an urgent long phone call whilst in poor coverage near the end of your tour and the "big batteries" will have dropped to minimal power remaining.

If you are using the phone more as a small internet computer and don't want to receive calls (under even emergency circumstances) using "Airplane" mode can save a fair amount of power. If you want to make an occasional call, use airplane mode and enable GSM only when you want to make a call or use GSM data so it's airplane majority of each day.

Ian