Tag Archives: solar charger

Backup Power You Can Carry With You – A Review

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As a prepper, I like things that are rechargeable. It minimizes the gear I have to store and carry. I especially like rechargeable batteries, with very little pre-planning you could continue charging and using them for a long period of time —  even during a collapse.

One of the primary rechargeable devices that I–and everyone else–carry is my phone. Most of the time keeping my iPhone 5S charged isn’t a big deal, I keep it plugged in if I’m in the car, at work, or in bed; in between those times it typically has plenty of battery life. But for the times I’m not around a standard outlet, I like to have a portable charger. Previously I used a New Trent i-Torch External Battery, but recently–after testing and evaluating–I’ve changed to Portable Power Solutions M110 External Battery.

External Battery compared to iPhone 5

External Battery compared to iPhone 5

The M110 External Battery is ruggedly built, it feels like I could drop it and it really wouldn’t care. It’s not much bigger than a deck of playing cards at 4″ x 2.8″ x 1″, weighing 10 ounces (a deck of cards is 3.5″ x 2.5″ x 5/8″). It nicely fits into a convenient pocket on my EDC bag (it even fits in my back pants pocket). It has enough power to completely recharge my iPhone, even if the phone’s dead, four times. The External Battery has an USB outlet so it’s easy to recharge; to completely recharge it takes about 10 hours.

Portable Power Solutions also has a 7W Foldable Solar Panel that pairs nicely with their External Battery. But the Solar Panel can also provide enough power to charge your cell phone, or even tablet, directly from the sun. It folds down to a convenient 7.5″ x 7.5″ x 1″ with a rugged cover that includes a pocket to store accessories. When in use, it folds out to 15 inches long and can easily be attached to your pack (it has eyelets for this purpose), or set down angled toward the sun.

portable power productsPortable Power Solutions’s final product is a 10K Solar Charger. It has the same lithium battery storage capacity as the M110 External Battery, and is about the same size (5.2″ x 3″ 0.8″, weighing 6.2 ounces). It’s a highbred, meaning it can both store power and be recharged by the sun — but it doesn’t do either thing as well as the two individual ones above. It has a small solar charger so it takes a long time to charge (36 hours). And though they still try to make it rugged, it does have a solar panel on it and needs to be handled with much more care. But it can, and does, do both jobs to the best of it’s capability.

Portable Power Solutions is veteran owed, and they’ve “been there”. All of their products are built to be heavy duty, durable, and weather resistant — they’re designed primarily for military guys to take to the field (who are notoriously hard on gear). I like the products and the company, and it’s definitely earned a spot in my everyday carry (EDC) and my Get Home Bag.

What We Did This Week To Prep 7/6/12

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One of the goals we have this year is to learn to identify local plants. We wanted to learn not only for us, but to be able to identify plants that grow wild that we can feed the rabbits. We ordered, and received, a plant identification book this week: Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast, by Pojar and MacKinnon. We just got it and it looks like it’ll be a great resource. Every plant has a colored picture(s), it’s well organized, and has lots of good information.

To continue working on our goal of being able to do laundry by hand we ordered a washboard and a Tin-Plated Steel Washer from Lehman’s this week. Next month we’ll budget money for the rest of the stuff needed: wash tubs and a hand-wringer.

We also ordered LifeStraws, personal water filters developed by Vestergaard Frandsen. I’ve read great reviews about them and decided to order three, one each for Sarah, Ryan, and my Get-Home Bags (GHB*). The literature states that they are designed to be used by one person and are capable of filtering 1000 liters of water (enough for one person for one year), removing 99.9% of waterborne bacteria and parasites.

We also made our monthly trip to Costco. We bought, after previously looking at and researching, a Goal Zero Portable Solar Power Pack Kit ($100). It’s designed to hang on a pack, absorbing sunlight to recharge your smart phone, camera, iPod, or anything else that can plug into a USB port, in addition to being able to charge AA and AAA rechargeable batteries. This is our first, and very minor, step into the world of photovoltaic solar power; I’m sure there’ll be a lot to learn.

It was interesting, at Costco, to find that we’re spending less on our normal purchases. Since our SWYE non-perishable food is basically complete (thus we have plenty of EVERYTHING we regularly use) we only buy replacement items when they are on sale. We love the fact that we can have our food storage and save money!

We also bought a couple of boxes of medical exam non-latex gloves; I prefer latex, but they’re getting harder to find and don’t store long-term as well (when they get old they tend to break when you put them on). And picked up some additional OTC Loperamide, they’re anti-diarrheal pills (combination of imodium and kaopectate); dysentery in a collapse is a huge risk.

As I’ve always said, buying things is easy; so look for future posts that discuss, and review, our experiences as we develop the skill-sets needed to use the above items.

The garden is about the same, though the strawberries and raspberries are starting to produce. Summer has finally started here in Western Washington, with forecasted temperatures of 70s and 80s and sunshine for the next week; so hopefully that’ll give the garden the kick it needs.

What did you do?

(Monday: 1/2 Through 2012 – Reviewing The Goals)

* For a complete list of abbreviations go to the ‘Check Here…‘ tab at the top left of the page.