Slashdot Mirror
Powering the Adventurous Geek?
Xochi77 asks: "As a Geek and a Backpacker, my laptop travels where ever I go, but now that I'm planning a trip through remote regions of South America and Africa, I'm starting to wonder where I'm going to get my power from. How has the Slashdot community dealt with powering high-tech gear in third world countries? I'm especially interested in alternative power sources, like solar cells and wind-up generators etc, but they will have to fit in my backpack!"
I'm running a PC, and It's plugged in the wall!
I'm from Argentina: Tango, Asado, Mate, Gaucho, Maradona, YPF
I am also a geek, and I enjoy various types of outdoor adventure travel (Backpacking, biking, etc.) Sometimes you have to unplug. Enjoy the beauty of your surroundings, and the excersize that you are getting. leave the laptop at home and catch up on your coding and slashdot when you get back. If you want it to store stuff like digital photos and film, stock up on extra CF cards and miniDV tapes. They are smaller than a laptop and the power you would want, and it gives you more time for your trip.
Backpacking with a laptop is like ripping cd's of john tesh. You may think you want to do it, but jeez man, don't tell anyone about it.
-Sean
They are not mutual exclusive, for one. You can do both at the same time. Just because he wants to be able to switch on his laptop and record his experiences, for example, does not mean that he can't 'see' and 'absorb' his experiences as well. In fact it may help.
On the other hand, doing a 'whirlwind tour' of South America seeing all these supposed 'ancient ruins' is a lot worse than what he's trying to do. It's stupid to compress your 'cultural experience' into a couple days, you will get much less out of it than if you actually tried to live there for awhile instead of just 'visiting'. And that's exactly what he's doing by going backpacking through the rainforest. He will no doubt get up close and personal with what the 'experience' is actually like, instead of just a snapshot of what it sometimes is like.
I mean, look at it this way: He wants to bring a part of his own culture that he enjoys, because it would be nice, but is not letting it get in the way of his 'cultural experience'. If he wanted to check his email, he would spend his trip in Rio de Janeiro, or better yet, not go to South America in the first place. Instead, he is going backpacking, and looking for a way to include his laptop in the equation if possible.
So why does this bother you so much? Sitting at his campsite at night writing up a few entries on his laptop and reviewing where he's already been, and uploading some digital pictures, shouldn't do anything but add to his experience. Unless a laptop somehow emanates "cannot appreciate the trip" radiation or something.
Random and weird software I've written.
We third worlders can sure use some of your high tech gadgets. Promise we wont hurt you, we just like your stuff.
Tat Tvam Asi
--we run on solar here, primarily from fixed rigid normal solar panels. I DO own two lightweight flexible portable panels that work great, they are my emergency bugout backpack panels. The company that makes them is Unisolar. Like almost all PV panels they dump whatever voltage they can get within two extremes of zero and around 20 volts, so for exact charging you would also need a "charge controller". The ones we use come from trace engineering, I have c-12's and c-40's, you could easily get by with their smallest cheapest offering, whatever that is "currently" pun intended. Now note, a carry around with you sized panel is NOT going to keep your laptop running like all day long,, just not happening, but to keep the batts topped off for a quick session then back to charging it's OK. The unisolar panels have grommets on the sides, easy enough to figure out some way to clip them on your back or even across your chest somehow depending on where the sun is as you are hiking.
I primarily have mine to recharge nicad radio and flashlight batts as I wouldn't plan on really humping a laptop in any emergency, but electric is electric, they'll charge batteries if you adjust the voltage output accordingly, ie, adjust charge controller to approximately 14 volts to charge a 12 volt batt, etc. Right now I use them to trickle charge/top off various equipment batteris we have occassionally
My vendor is Four-Winds-Energy
http://www.four-winds-energy.com
The owner Roy is a personal meatworld friend of mine, he has a form on his mainpage you can request any info you might want. He carries these flexible panels, three sizes. Good luck on your trip!
If you want to see some pics of the main solar rig bragger here, goto this other link
http://www.four-winds-energy.com/about.html
scroll down to middle of page see a few pics of "mountaintop in georgia". Nifty stuff!
i've travelled with my girlfriend (peace corps) through africa a couple of times, and i should comment that flashing a lot of material wealth -- a bank of solar cells and a laptop -- wouldn't be the smartest thing to do in the bush... when you're not in the bush, of course, you'll have some electricity.
try to make do with less in the third world. be a considerate visitor, too.
two cents.
Depends on what you are trying to do. If you are taking notes, then I'd get used palm pilot that runs on AAAs (IIIx for example) and a folding keyboard. Unless you are writing all the time, a pair of AAAs should last you about two weeks. Then carry as many spare batteries as your limit of pain allows. For data collection or note taking, this outfit is cheap, light and reasonably rugged.
I've been equipping people for field data collection for a number of years now, and I've been using PalmOS because of battery life considerations, as well as low cost. PocketPC machines are more ambitious, and it shows in their battery life; generally, I have not seen any field worthy pocketPC except for trimble's unit, which has good battery life, integrated DGPS, is built like a brick, weighs like a brick, and costs like a brick (if the brick is made of precious metal).
If you are not going to be away from civilization for more than a week at a time, you could get a new palm, such as the m500. Get a new one so the battery is fresh, and you probably won't have to charge it. Also get the backup card so you can backup your data in case you are gone so long you hard reset. Get a vehicle charger and bum a charge off a friendly native once in a while. Or you could rig a solar charger to a small storage battery and juice up your PDA every few days. The advantage is that you don't have to deliver as much energy as with a laptop, so the battery can be smaller and lighter, and charge times for the storage battery less.
The same strategy could be used for a PocketPC PDA, but you'd have to juice up a lot more frequently. PocketPCs are just a bit bulkier and heavier though.
Another PDA solution would be a used Newton. Again, these are a bit bulky and heavy, but they are good for several weeks solid on 4AAs, and provide a flash card backup option. They're also quite rugged, discounting the possibilty of the glass being smashed, which is the achilles heel of any PDA. I heard about a mining company engineer who lost one in a river, fished it out a week later, and simply opened all the compartments and let it dry by the fire for a day. Popped in fresh batteries and it started right up.
Speaking of which, there are armored, waterproof, floating cases available for the most popular PDA models including palms.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
wtf are you going to do with a laptop in the middle of a jungle?
If we could IM to the animals, just imagine it,
Chattin' to a chimp in chimpan-C++,
Imagine finger(1) to a tiger, wall(1) to a cheetah,
What a neat hack it would be!
If we could fopen(3) to the animals, learn their logical formalism,
We could take an animal degree,
We'd study elephant and BASIC, buffalo and TCL,
Alligator, guinea pig, and C!
We would converse in polar bear and python,
And we would curse in fluent kangaroo,
If people ask us "can you speak rhinocerous?"
We'd say "of courserous! Can't you?"
If we conferred with our furry friends, geek to Alan Cox,
Think of all the things we could discuss
If we could socket(3) with animals, write(1) with the animals,
Grunt and squeak and squawk with the animals,
And they could BitchX to us!
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
If you are in a city, you probably won't have too much problems, but some things to be careful about: 1) Leave you case tightly zipped when not in use. I once lost a shortwave radio due to an ant colony deciding to use it. 2) Humidity. Air conditioning removes humidity as well as lowers the temperature, so we Americans have lost sight of what humidity can do to things. The Ashanti region in Ghana during the rainy season and anyway on the Fiji islands at any time are humid. I mean really, really mold growing on everything, laminations peeling away before your eyes, humid. 3) Dust. There is a Harmattan season anywhere south of the Sahara (which is big, roughly the size of the continental US). This means a whole lot of dust. I was once a passenger in a bush taxi on a dirt road when the windshield shattered. The driver pulled over, kicked out the windshield and we proceded to drive a couple hundred miles in the dust. You can not imagine what we looked like at the end of the trip. More importantly, every tiny gap in my luggage had served as gate house for the red laderite clay dust. Everything in my zipped bag had to be washed. 4) Weird Bugs. I was visiting someone in a very small village in the Fiji Islands. She lived in a traditional thatched house (she wasn't local. The locals used galvanized steel roofing...) I opened up a book on her shelf. It had different colored print, or rather it used to have. Some mites had eaten all the letters out of the book, except for one color (blue?) It was the neatest thing...
A laptop? Forget it. Get a PDA.
In fact, get an old PDA. New ones tend to eat batteries with things like colour screens and backlights. Also, they use built-in rechargable batteries that require special equipment to charge.
The ideal travel computer is something like an early Palm Pilot. Mono screen, no backlight. No moving parts. Runs off AAA batteries; you can get new disposables practically everywhere, and you can take some rechargables and a solar panel for those times when you can't get them. You can even get keyboards for them. One of these plus a cell phone or sat phone will give you (slow, expensive) 'net access everywhere. Also, they're cheap; drop one in a river and you're not watching a thousand currency units of your choice bubble gently.
I'm rather tempted by the AlphaSmart Dana. Palm device with a real keyboard, 560x160 screen, ports, runs of AA batteries (which are even easier to come by than AAA)... Disclaimer: I've never seen one. They might be crap.
Use an Apple Newton and buy batteries. I spent many months backpacking the Appalachian Trail in '96, and went through a bunch of laptops, phones, digital cameras and such. The best solution by a long shot was the Newton. It runs on 4 AAs, with a great battery life, it's really rugged, works in a far greater temperature range than a WinCE or a Palm, and doesn't seem to mind water all that much. Skip the solar charges -- AAs are used the world 'round, to the best of my knowledge. Just carry 8-12 with you and that'll do the trick. If you need to connect to the 'net via a cellular connection (as opposed to via landlines as you find them), be sure that you get an old school "brick" AMPS Motorola with an AA adaptor, or a newer one with an AA adaptor, if they exist. They take 6 AA batteries. Warning: Your Newton's battery life will plummet if you connect for long. So get your mail via POP, and connect, transmit data, and quickly disconnect. There are lots of people that remain active fans of the Newton, and the Newton 2000 will support most modern devices pretty well. Fall in with a Newton fan club and they'll set you up right.
Oh, and when people tell you that you're "missing the point" by bringing a computer, tell them to fuck off and eat it. Your point is your point, so you'll never miss it. What they really mean is that you're missing their point, which is one that should be of nobody's concern but theirs.
-Waldo Jaquith
When I travel, about the only tech I take is my GPS receiver chock full 'o waypoints. It runs for a few days on two NiMH AA batteries. I also take some additional AAs and keep in a solar charger. I stick that thing in the sun every chance I get (e.g. window sill, dashboard of a rental car, strapped to the top of my backpack or head).
Laptops are tougher. Get a handful of power adapters and recharge every chance you get (e.g. restaurants, exterior outlets on houses, DC-AC inverter in cars, bare wires in bases of lamp posts, etc). Also take a long some extra laptop batteries.
And don't forget your Iridium phone so you can check your email any where,any time.