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A group of us head off to Camp bestival every year with a crowd of youngsters.
Keeping in touch is sometimes a problem but all the kids have phones however they discharge over the long weekend, espeically as they all have smartphones. There is a guy onsite who charges a kings ranson to charge them for you so I was thinking of taking a battery for this purpose.
What do I need ?????
A battery, a fused cable going to a cigarette lighter socket, and a car mobile phone charger.
Oh, and make sure that the battery is nice and secure and can't fall over/off anything and that it can't be short circuited - a mate of mine nearly set fire to an airliner with a battery incident.
A battery, a fused cable going to a cigarette lighter socket, and a car mobile phone charger
Thanks Cranberry. Sorry to be dim but are their kits for this or do I need to do a bit of reading up etc and pull the bits together? That wont be too much of a problem just didnt want to reinvent the wheel.
There are probably kits, look at Maplin
Fused lighter socket
what are your plans for charging the leasure battery?
Depending on the number of kids it may be more cost effective to get something like these
You charge it at home then charge the phone from it over the weekend.
Note that you could probably save money and not use a full sized leisure battery, they are somewhat expensive. A smaller lead acid would work for phones for a weekend.
Average mobile battery is ~1.1Ah, average small lead acid is about 10-12 Ah so you could deal with a couple of smartphones for a weekend with one fairly well (greatly simplifying calcs).
Smaller lead acids also come with spade terminal connection which are a lot easier to connect to than many of the leisure battery terminals which are often either round or big flats with massive holes.
But he'd have to charge a small fortune to make it worth your while, a lead acid will be £2, the rest of the kit could be found for about £15-20, would you really use £40 worth of charge over the weekend? I mean really why not just turn the phone off or leave it behind?
what are your plans for charging the leasure battery?
I wasnt planning to recharge it while we were away I was planning to recharge when home.
That second link looks spot on. I can just connect to a leisure battery (what voltage?)
The first link looks very slick but a larger battery may be more appropriate, not bothered how it looks etc but may need to charge up to half a dozen smart phones maybe twice (if thats doable on this type of setup)
Thanks for your comments so far!!
Surfer - think you have your link order confused, the second one is the portable battery, the first the connection kit you're looking for.
It'll run of 12v. You may be able to get away with a 6v lead acid but I wouldn't guarantee it, it depends on the regulators in your charger. To do 6 smartphones twice you're looking at needing around a 14Ah (14000mAh) lead acid battery (bare minimum, that could be borderline depending on the discharge characteristics).
Coffeeking your right. Cheers for that.
all batteries will be 12 volt [ exceptions exist but you would need to be looking]
The battery will have an amp rating [ 60-100] for a leisure and so will each phone device - you could work it out canceling out for votages and loss
My rough calcualtion are you will be absolutelt fine for a week[ish] charging 5-8 phones per day
all batteries will be 12 volt [ exceptions exist but you would need to be looking]
If you go with leisure batteries, if you go with the many easily available lead acid batteries you get 3,6,9,12 and more very easily 😀
IF you're going to be carrying it into the location I suggest going with a sealed lead acid or gel type rather than a normal one as you can knock it over, lick it, use it as a basketball (ok, maybe too far) and not have it leak on you. None of them are cheap though.
A cheap car battery (£35-40) would do the trick nicely though.
I mean really why not just turn the phone off or leave it behind?
You and your pesky logic! problem is other parents wanting to speak,txt kids etc as well as some of us having to be contactable for work. A weekend without a phone would be bliss but experience tells me is unrealistic so the choice is switching on and off, spare batteries or paying someone £7 for a 30 min charge!
Even if we take the phones off the kids at certain times/restrict their use etc over a 4 day weekend some of us will need to recharge so why not buy a setup that will do it all and I will have lots of uses for in future.
Thanks for everyones comments I think I have enough to go on 😀
£7 for 30 minute. **** me, I'm going into business at £6!
I mean really why not just turn the phone off or leave it behind?
Maybe they don't want to, hence the post... 🙄
you can get AA powered usb chargers for about a fiver on the net. cheap and simple
Maybe they don't want to, hence the post...
Just suggesting an alternative point of view that many forget, don't get your panties in a twist 😉 I did also answer the original post first, don't forget, with something more helpful than "there's probably kits, look" 😉 .
Although leaving the kids behind is an option!
Neatest pre-made solution would be one of the 12V power packs intended for starting cars. Lots come with lighter sockets, inverters, air compressors, even powered USB sockets built in. Charge just by plugging into a socket at home, or many will charge from a (running) car's lighter socket. Just make sure you check the specs and get one with a big enough battery for what you need - ratings are in amp-hours, a standard USB socket will pull 500mA so an 8Ah battery would power a USB charger for about 16 hours. Generally the pricier ones get bigger batteries, but that usually means heavier to carry too.
You can improve the battery life of most smartphones a lot where you need to economise on power. Bluetooth, wifi and 3G off, push email off, lower the screen brightness and switch off when you're asleep and most will get through a festival no problem. Phones barely work at most festivals and certainly data use is so congested it's not worth even trying.
Else basic Nokias are under £20 sim-free and the battery lasts for a couple of weeks on them - I have a 1616 as a travel phone and it's great for that. Even has a torch built in 8)
