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Traveling with Too Many Chargers?
MotorMachineMercenar wonders: "I just took a roadtrip over a long weekend and noticed that I need to lug around too many chargers. I have a charger for my cell phone, Nintendo DS Lite, my two digital cameras and an iPod. Sometimes I will have one for a portable HDD and laptop. In addition I have to carry a plug converter as some of them have been bought overseas. That's up to eight gadgets just to give juice my power-hungry devices, and they take precious space and weight in my bags. Is there any way to limit the number of chargers without gimping my roadwarrior gear? Most devices have more or less fixed batteries, 'smart' chargers and proprietary plugs, but is it possible as DIY, or is there an existing product? I'd like to see a universal charger for which plugs for any current device with the flexibility to add more in the future. What are the limitations and caveats with 240 vs 120, wattage, cutting and connecting cables, and so forth?"
I use Igo and USB cables to charge my devices. Igo junk is available at a lot of retailers. There are varying power source and wattage ratings of the chargers, including air/car/110~/220~ power supplies that automatically adjust voltage and current, and can charge four or more devices at once if necessary. It is based on tip adapters that deliver power specific to their respective devices. They are pretty fast to make new connectors.
There are also the alkaline/lithium battery powered auxillury chargers, most of which are universal with multiple connecters. You can also use the solar chargers, most of which include a DC car socket.
I think that sooner than later, everything small will charge from USB and everything larger will have automatically switching power supplies that can run from any typical power source without adaptation.
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the only charger you need
Yes... There are other "multi-chargers" too, and eBay sellers peddle plenty of them.
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I don't think you are travelling with too many chargers - but that you are traveling with too many things that require chargers.
I've been intrigued by www.igo.com, but haven't actually purchased it.
i think your best option is to use devices that charge via usb as much as possible. my phone uses usb to charge and i thought ipods did as well (don't have one though.) I know there are cameras that use usb to replenish their batteries. incompatible chargers is an enourmously frustrating experience so i am happy to see that more devices seem to be focusing on using usb. i know that radio shack sells kits with different adapter sizes and voltage switching as i used one to charge my minidisc player a few years back. this is not as good of a solution to me as usb charging so i look for that in devices i want to purchase. i realize differnt devices have dfferent amperage requirements but why, oh why, must cell phone manufacturers make so many different interfaces and amperage settings for what is essentially the same device! can they possibly be making that much money ripping people off for chargers? anyway, demand usb charging and hopefully more manufaturers will get a clue.
harmonious design
Sounds to me like you need a new laptop. Get one that you can easily carry. Now get a thumb drive instead of the HDD. Do you really need the DS... I'm sure if charging is a problem you can get by with phone and laptop games. Get a picture phone, and charge your IPod off your laptop. Now you only need two chargers, which shouldn't really be a problem.
If you really need a camera with quality, find one that will let you charge from your laptop. I can't think why you'd need two seperate cameras if you're using digital anyway. In the end for convenience is going to cost you one way or the other. To save room you'll have to replace most of your devices, and that's going to cost you... you're probably not going to be able to buy a simple cable to fix your problems.
I doubt you'll find a universal charger since many devices will need different voltages, or will draw widely different currents. You'll probably be charging them all at the same time anyway! If your problem is plugs, buy a power strip.
As for the America/Europe issues... it would be awesome if both could agree on one standard. I know I'd be willing to pay to change my own plugs and buy a few converters until I got new electronics... unfortunately most people wouldn't be willing to do that. Not to mention finding all the old grannies out there and getting them to change everything before the power changes and fries their heater and kill them...
My phone, mp3 player, gps, and camera all charge and interface using miniusb. Perhaps you should consider purchasing products a little less proprietary?
The mess of a million wall-wart power supplies is not just inconvenient - the idle power supplies still draw current - it's a big draw on the grid when you add them all up.
USB charging as a standard is a great idea, but I'd like the world to move to a high-voltage + low-voltage standard.
Imagine: You have your standard outlet (by the conventions of your nation, of course), and you also have a low-voltage tap at each outlet. That low-voltage puts out a standardized voltage, has a standard current rating suitable for everything from a phone charger to a laptop battery recharger. Best yet: set it up so it's not drawing power from the grid when you're not charging anything.
All the manufacturers need to standardize on a common charging spec for this to work at all...
What are the limitations and caveats with 240 vs 120
Well they're pretty much the same. In both cases you've got about a 9% overvoltage condition.
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If you haven't noticed, you've got the same problem at home too. I've got five computers and assorted battery chargers and cell phones and gadgets in my home office, and the fucking things have filled up 6 power strips. And I'm even using the 6 inch extension cords on all the bricks so I'm not wasting any spaces on the power strips. It's fucking out of control.
We need a power standard. We need standard plugs, and two or three standard DC voltages. Say 12 volts and 5 volts. Maybe 9 volts too. That way we can buy a single large power supply to power all these little devices from one source. Even if we used a regular power supply that a computer uses, we could probably run everything off that. Scanners, USB drives, cell phone chargers, switches, hubs, Linksys firewall appliances, EVERYTHING.
And, it should be a standard that every device has an IN plug and an OUT plug so not everything has to be plugged directly into the main DC power source. You should be able to chain a few USB drives off your little 8 port ethernet switch, all of them drawing power from the big DC power supply.
I think that this is something I could make some money with. Put a computer power supply in a box. Sell it with some connectors and adaptors. You're done, and you've got lots of plugs and much less wire tangle.
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It's really simple -- don't take so much shit with you. Who needs TWO cameras, AND Nintendo, AND a laptop, AND an iPod...
Sorry, but your problem isn't chargers - it's that you're a gadget freak who can't pack sensibly.
I used to sell these things at the electronics/computer store I worked at called (review) I-GO Juice. There were a few different models out at the time, but one had pretty much any proprietary plug I had ever come across (believe me I've seen some odd ones) as well as adapters for foreign outlets and car outlets. It also auto-sensed input and output voltages and wattages/amps. Neat little thing and my customers always came back to tell me it did everything they wanted anywhere they were, and it's not often you get that. Hope that helps, I'm sure there are other companies that make a similar product, but this is the only one I've seen. Cheers, Phil
Firewire portable HDD can run off of bus power.
A very, VERY, VERY standardized solution to your problem already exists... One that will work in any device from any country on the planet, regardless of local voltage, frequency, and even reliability of AC power availability:
Make sure to only buy devices that take AA/AAA batteries. Then you just need to carry a few extra NiMH recharcheables, and a single charger will take care of all your portable electricity needs every night while you sleep.
You can also get AA-to-12VDC converters, which will work with anything that can accept a car cigarette-lighter plug (make sure to get one that works with rechargeables, though, which for NiMH run at 1.2V rather than 1.5V... That doesn't matter much for up to four batteries, but at 8+ batteries, it can make some unprepared devices fail).
It amazes me that so many people put up with devices that have their own built-in non-replaceable incompatible-with-everything batteries. Rechargeables do eventually die. In exchange for five minutes of research up-front, you can save yourself a dozen different chargers and the need to replace various portable products (*cough* early iPods *cough*) yearly for no better reason than a dead battery.
Personally, I follow the above advice religiously. If my phone dies, I pop open my GPS and bam, I can call for help. If my GPS dies in the middle of a long hike, my camera makes the (temporary) ultimate sacrifice, and I can once again find my car. If my camera dies just as a UFO full of Elvis impersonators lands in front of me, always have an 8-pack of spares available, compatible with every device I carry. And when I get home or back to the car after draining every battery I own, a single charger restores them all to life in just a few hours.
Splashpower seems like another solution that may work for you. Wirelessly powers devices that you just sit on a tray. Since the recent article about wireless power that also mentioned this solution, I've thought about giving this a shot (as it seems more realistic).
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A few years ago I found a device at Best Buy that plugs into the wall and gives you a standard car cigarette lighter socket. It is rated for very low amps (designed to charge cell phones), but since I am mainly charging cell phones, iPods, and other low-draw devices, it works well. I just buy car charging cables for each device (which are significantly smaller and less bulky than their A/C counterparts) and carry them.
In a car? No problem, just use the car charger straight. Inside with an outlet? Just plug in the inverter and then the car charger cable.
It means I can only one device at a time, but as long as I time things well, this is not a bad problem with most devices having Li-Ion batteries with the fairly quick 80% charge.
I also have a generic cigarette lighter -> USB adaptor which also makes for a nice generic piece to charge from. As others have said, standardizing on USB to charge from makes things nice.
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Pick up one of these http://us.kensington.com/html/6368.html it comes with the 9 most common tips including an Ipod one and if you have some wierd device it doesnt support they will send you the extra tip. It also includes air and car adaptors and comes with a nylon back to carry it all. Even with all the tips and adaptors its still smaller than most laptop power supplies. I just carry it with me when I travel and round robin it with all my gadgets for charging. It sure beats carrying 15 pounds of power adaptors.
That's about right. By changing the specs just enough to require new accessories they've created an additional market that they can control. They could make a slight modification to their power interface, patent it, and then license the use of it to the after-market manufacturers. This creates them a recurring revenue stream. Creating cheap accessories that break, wear-out, or have a limited-life non-replaceable battery (Bluetooth headset) also create another recurring revenue stream for these companies. Personally I'd rather buy from a company that showed a little ethics but that's just me.
I agree on the USB thing. Nothing but USB for me. The guy that created USB didn't charge Intel enough for it when he sold it back in the early 90s.
I've used this for some time and it worked quite well. It can take 10 batteries to charge at once but it does not have a auto cut off timer and other charging protection but then again it's more for 50/50 outdoors and indoors use. http://21st-century-goods.com/page/21st/PROD/iSunB P
That is the unit I use. Here is a review I did a while ago on this.
http://outdoors-magazine.com/s_article.php?id_arti cle=109
One idea is to see if the devices you have, have cigarette chargers sold for them. If they do then take some color labels and write the name of the device that charger is for or use color sticker dots and put one color dot on the cig-port end and the other on the adaptor end. Now take all the cig-chargers you have and zip-tie or gun-tape or put into one of those wrappy coil things to keep them all together. Now all you have to do when traveling is only reach for that multi-adaptor you just made and the Isun Battpak with its AC/DC charger and you're good to go.
So that would mean you only carry 4 extra items on top of your devices. You can make that 3 extra items if you take away the DC charger for the BattPak and have an invertor in the car. IMHO I find the AC charger better to have just incase the DC fubars or something you can still charge the batteries at any 110 outlet.
The Battpak will also charge N cells as well without an adaptor (which is not mentioned anywhere and very useful for small lights or blinkies on a bicycle). You can drop 10 fresh alkalines and get ~15-16v and run an small inverter if you want and if you come across a bulk buy AA pack.
Glooko_Archive
Unfortunately, my next Nokia phone couldn't use it, because it needed more amperage or some other undocumented quality. Now that I've got a cretinously stupid Motorola phone, I'll have to see if I can find the cable again.
Bill Stewart
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Or you can get a powered USB hub for about $10, and if you don't plug it into your computer, the iPod's happy. USB 1.1 hubs have become really cheap now that USB2 is out, and for low-speed devices like mice, keyboards, and DC power they work just fine.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Companies like to make these proprietary connectors so they can sell you overpriced chargers, cables, etc.
Motorola phones use USB - at least, several (including the RAZR) do that I know of. That was a consideration when I bought mine, since being able to charge the phone off the laptop is a big help when traveling.
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USB charging is great for leaving your blackberry in a cradle. But for on the go, it's not a good solution. For one thing - too slow. Plus it doesn't completely solve your carry one charger problem.
When you charge on the road, you want to get fully charged as fast as possible. Being able to charge two things at once is even better. Basically if you travel a lot, the iGo is the best solution. A gift you give yourself. There is a competing product from Kensington but afaik it's only at Circuit City and just as expensive.
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The boxwave people make small retractable USB charging cables for a lot of devices. www.boxwave.com
I have a handful of these for most of my gizmos, and since most devices need only an hour or two a day of charging, a single laptop USB port is probably plenty.
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For any trip, I take with me my 12'' laptop with a small USB hub. My first mobile phone (also mp3 player+radio+decent camera) is a Sony Ericsson w800i, with USB charge support. My second mobile phone is an HP Ipaq 6300 series (also PDA with windows mobile 2003 and GPS with an external bluetooth receiver), with USB charge support. Also the GPS receiver have the USB charge support. :)
So, with one powered device (my laptop), I can charge all my others devices
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Sony W850 too charges from USB - but you do have to carry the prop. USB cable. Given that that's along anyway for the laptop, though, it works out.
Not sure about other Sony models, but I presume ones of a similar vintage do the same thing.
I have a question for you... Has everyone in the world forgotten about universal AC adapters?
Seems like they were pretty common in the 80s, but somehow everyone has completely forgotten about them.
It's pretty simple, you buy the universal AC adapter, select the voltage and polarity, and plug-in the tip that fits your device (for some odd plugs, you may have to buy the appropriate tips seperately).
The laptop is going to be the only problem... Laptops use so much more power than other devices, that it is prohibitively expensive to get a universal adapter, or even replace your bundled adapter. If you lost or destroyed the original though, it might be better to go with a universal notebook AC adapter too, but the price is prohibitive.
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A USB port cannot supply more than 2.5 watts. A quick survey of my house shows that all my chargers supply about that much power.
... but now you're schlepping another wall wart around.
If you connect an unpowered USB hub to your laptop, then the total power supplied to all the ports on the hub cannot add up to more than 2.5 watts, minus a fraction to power the hub itself. You can't efficiently charge more than one device at a time through this hub.
If your USB hub is powered by a wall wart, then each of its ports can supply the full 2.5 watts
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Pity it's not ready yet...!
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There are too many chargers and plugs, you're absolutely correct. This problem will probably get worse and worse until a gov't has to step in and regulate the power plugs. More and more businesses are building proprietary plugs for simple 5V, 9V, 12V, and 19.6V adapters. Witness Dell with the needle thing center electrode and octogonal shell, and Nintendo with it's odd trapezoidal plug. It's quite obvious that they're doing this because of buyer lock-in, and not for anything approaching the real needs of the product.
DIN, ANSI, and all the other standards bodies have long ago defined reasonable specs for these plugs, which brought prices down because of manufacturing en masse. Now that it's so cheap to custom make these plastic bits, businesses are looking at it on the long term and realizing that buyer lock-in provides them with more money than they'll save by chosing the cheap standardized connector.
The problem is, how to go about this? Gov't regs for technology are Bad (TM) things, and certainly prevent innovation. However, Dell is hardly innovating with a plug that is *more* likely to be broken or bent. Maybe one or two good class-action suits would scare them back into line so that they only develop a new DC connector when there's real innovation in it. Like DC connectors with seperate grounds or magnetic power plugs on laptops. (Apple does this, although I have no idea if they were the first or not)
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Informative.
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Is the power ratings and permitations of connectors (prorpiatory connectors add to the problem). There are a shedload of things that take 4 AA batteries. Alkaline or rechargeables. That totals between 4.8V and 6V (or a little over). However, they ALL say "please use our charger otherwise you'll blow up the kit". Then look at the voltage of that wall-wart: 4.5V, 4.7V, 5V, 5.5V, 6V have all been on different items that ALL take 4 AA's.
WHY!!!!
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I have a Solio [www.solio.com] - it is sold as charging via solar power, but you can also charge it from the mains - it comes with specialised tips (iPod, phones etc), but also a standard USB female - great for when you don't have a laptop around or, indeed, no outlet socket at all
I Highly recommend them both for their utility and ecological low impact.
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...the good old connector conspiracy.
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There are few universal plugs for equipment, unfortunately most of it is not for mobile devices. Computer monitors, and desktops take the same connector, and the majority of Evil Sony products take the same 2 prong AC plug. I would suspect that in short time everything will start to be powered via USB. Then you'd only need the aproporiate USB plug for your device, and the USB power charger.
"I have a charger for my cell phone, Nintendo DS Lite, my two digital cameras and an iPod." Most chargers I've seen for cell phones, digital cameras, and iPods are quite small. I know the DS Lite charger is small. All those together should not be taking up that much space. I bet 3 pair of underwear take up more space. They may be a tangled mess, but space shouldn't be an issue. If you are really tight, perhaps give up wearing underwear. That will free up the space you need.
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My choice of CD player, digital camera, portable GPS, MP3 player, RF modulator, LED flashlights and other road warrier tech is influnced by the ablility to use AA batteries. Some items such as laptop and cell phone don't give you that option. My list of charging gear is pretty much a 12 volt Cell phone charger, 120/240 AA battery charger, Laptop 120/240 supply, and a pocket 140 watt 12/120 volt inverter.
I can charge anyting while in a car with the pocket inverter. Everyting works on 120 or 240 volt except the cell phone. I have a 2 AA battery box for the phone for when I'm away from a vehicle for more than 3 days.
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yes, it is possible to use a single regulated supply for all devices that run on the same voltage. in the case of my portable electronics, it's almost universally 5VDC, which is also what is used for power over USB. if you are handy enough with a soldering iron to put the various output plugs (barrel connectors and so on) in parallel, one sufficiently robust supply can power them all. to calculate the output wattage needed, add the maximum power draws of the loads you expect to plug in at once. if not listed, the latter can be measured with the DC ammeter portion of any multimeter. for reasons of weight you will probably want a switching supply rather than linear (which includes a large transformer). many supplies are prewired to accept (say) 100-240VAC, 50/60 Hz, so they are useful worldwide as long as you can get it into the wall. one possible variation is a more complex supply with multiple output voltages (e.g. 3.3v, 12v, etc.). NB, regulating a small amount of 3.3V power out of 5V is close to trivial with a regulator IC. hope this helps.
...back in the 20th century we had these quaint little things called "power adaptors". Like chargers, but they didn't cost £40 for a replacement and the round plugs they used worked in more than one device.
I hear your pain. When I fly home, I usually carry a phone, MP3 player, 2 laptops, bulky headphones, and 2 big hardcover books. Normally, I'd throw most of the gear in my checked baggage; but I don't trust the baggage handlers at all.
Our only recourse is to learn to travel light. (Granted, I could always switch employers to one who allows me to VNC directly into my desktop using personal hardware.)
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