Chargers for phones & other thingies - advice please

MissFitz

MissFitz

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Off to Greece for a fortnight, hadn't realised that there's no shorepower thereabouts (& if there is, don't think the boat has a 240v socket). Do any of the solar-powered chargers work? Or Powermonkeys & the like? And will they hold out for a fortnight?

We want to charge a couple of phones, a couple of iPods & a laptop. (And before anyone asks why we can't enjoy sailing without the gadgets, it's for work! Well, ok, not the iPods.....)

All help much appreciated, thanks.
 
The boat is likely to have a cig lighter socket - so take charging adapters suitable for that - failing that you could get a cheapo "Can" inverter - this works with many, but not all charging devices ... but looking at your list - a DC2DC charger for the laptop will be available from Maplin - you can charge the iPods up from the laptop.
 
Powermonkey explorer for phones (all of them!) and ipods or an old 12V nokia charger and the powermonkey adapters /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

The power monkey doesn't come with a 12v charger which is a real shame.

Get a 12V chargers for laptops, or an inverter for a car, but only use 1 laptop on it at a time.
 
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Plan B is to charge up in the taverna!

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Ah, yes, well I was wondering about that - are taverna owners generally tolerant of power-hungry yotties using their electricity?
 
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Ah, yes, well I was wondering about that - are taverna owners generally tolerant of power-hungry yotties using their electricity?

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I was there last week and never had a problem - indeed one taverna in Kioni even had a big 6-gang extension for this very purpose!

Another good thing to take is one of those 4-way adaptors for the cig-lighter socket on the boat. None of these electronic gizmos draws much current so you can safely charge several at once if you have the right adaptors.
 
If you do use a 4 way 12v thingy, make sure you don't stack it up with too many power hungry things.

On one boat I was running my laptop off one, I went up on deck to sort summut out, in that time one of the crew had plugged thier inverter in (it had a long lead which disappeared over the saloon cushion)...First thing I notice was a burning smell, then smoke coming out of the 12 socket, pulled the plug (well what was left of it out) and there was molten plastic all over the place! Fuse was still intact tho! /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Also in my car I have a charger for my pda, bluetooth GPS, and mobile, I've blown a few 10A fuses with all three plugged in at the same time.

Just a thought
 
In my boat we use purpose made 12V chargers where possible and to this end are in the process of providing suitable 12V sockets throughout the boat.
 
Carphone warehouse sell a brilliant charger that comes with swappable end connections to cover almost all phone types, and includes a cig lighter power lead with the same endings. Cheap and does the trick. For ipods, we took a lead that charges from 12v but also transmits on FM, so you can tune the ipod to the boat stereo. But be warned, FM congestion in Greece (Ionian we went to) is pretty bad at times so finding a clear frequency can be troublesome. If you have an itrip then this combined with the first phone charger will do the same thing (your itrip has a mini-usb connection to accept power, and there's a mini-usb connector in the phone pack).

For laptops/camcorders/cameras we previously took a convertor to turn the 12v supply into a 3-pin socket, but they are a bit bulky and we ended up borrowing taverna power supplies most of the time - none of them minded at all as long as we were eating/drinking enough. On the other downside, we felt the engine had to be running to charge these items and I hate excess engine use, so never bothered with them again, eventually settling on a camera that took AA batteries so we didn't need to charge, and leaving the laptops at home thanks to the wonders of blackberry.
 
Great advice as always, many thanks to all - leaving the notebook at home sounds like the easiest solution, guess I could be really dashing & write longhand /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif
 
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