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Visor DX off the grid: Experiment in progress

Greetings -

as a few long time member may remember, there was a thread about solar power and PDA's. At the time I had suggested that having the flip cover made up of PV panels would be the bomb.

Well, this ain't it, but its still interesting.

I bought one of the ICU power units for my VDX a long while back. For those who are not familar with them, its a pair of NiMH batteries, a custom battery cover, and a charging unit that runs on either 12 VDC or 110/120 AC depending on what end you use. This works great, except the snap on head lost a part, and I have to use a rubber band to hold in place when I charge my PDA.

I was down at Harbor Freight today, and noticed that they were selling solar powered battery chargers. One model (the BatterySaver Powerpak by ICP Tech) has the ability to plug in a 12v charger directly into the unit. It can also charge 4 AA batteries at the same time.

I bought it ($35.00) and will be testing it next week while I am camping. It claims 140 milliamp per hour charging at 6 volts, and I only have 2 AAA's in my PDA to charge at 12, so it should be the same. The AAA's are 550's, so I should be able to keep my PDA charged with just a couple of hours of sunlight a day. Since I live in the Southwest, sunlight shouldn't be a problem.

The interesting part for most folks would be the ability to trickle charge your PDA *and* a cell phone. If you really wanted to be able to go trekking with your visor and a cell phone, you shouldn't have to worry about running out of power. I'll post results when I return. I intend to use this to charge my visor, and also my batteries for a Kodak digital camera.

If you're interested check out harbor freight and ICP Tech's web pages.

www.harborfreight.com or www.icpglobal.com


Cheers!

Tucson Sailors

This sounds very interesting. Keep us abreast of yr discoveries.

thanks,
bagelche