Looking at a set up for the touring bike to charge a Garmin and phone while away.

Does anybody have a set up on there bike?
Which bits and any advice would be greatly appreciated?

contact Rob Dean http://robdeanhove.blogspot.com/ he’s been doing a lotg of work with dynamo powered stuff recently and I’m sure he’d be happy to share his experiences.

I will be using the PD-8 disc dynamo hub, with IS 6 bolt flange, on my mountain bike and the PV-8 rim brake version on my road bike to power my LED dynamo light and also to charge my phone & GPS at times.

Which Garmin have you got? Unless they’ve updated the software, an Edge 500 won’t charge while running (attaching power causes it to shut down :-/) – I assume the Edge 200/800 are the same?

Andy

Don’t buy a cheap dynamo charger off ebay – we had a sidewall dynamo one at work, and it blew up a (very expensive at the time) nokia n95.

Should be less of a problem with dynamo hubs I guess because they are current limited, but I’d still recommend something either made by a decent company, or home made so you know what is inside it.

Supernova make a USB charger that sits in the stem top-cap. It is ruinously expensive though.

Thanks wwaswas I’ll have a look.

I was thinking about a Schmidt son28 disc hub or one of the new supernova hubs.

Didn’t know that about the Garmin (it’s an 800) – bit of a pain in the arse that and may scupper the plans before I even get started. As I wood have to charge a seperate battery to then charge the Garmin.

Might be cheaper and lighter to buy a very high capacity portable battery charger – which would be able to charge the Garmin 3 or 4 times. I expect to be calling in on a campsite/pub etc every couple of days which would give me power, but not every day.

Hmmm… Options, options…..

didn’t someone produce a stem cap with a USB socket in it recently, wired to a dyno-hub?

supernova, out of stock at amazon

potentially more reliable from SJS

Lad I work with fitted a dynamo hub to his Croix de fer for doing LEJOG. Worked great apparently, charged phone and gps. Had a little fork mounted unit with a plug and on/off switch.

Think he spotted the wheel prebuilt in a sale at CRC or something by chance.

How about one of these:
http://www.roseversand.de/artikel/b–m-netz–und-ladegeraet-e-werk/aid:399590

Unless you really want dynamo, I’d just use a powermonkey or similar. Solar charge it’s battery during the day, charge your gadgets in the evening. On a touring bike it should be easy to stick some Velcro tabs on a pannier for the solar panel.

Yep I was thinking about the stem cap mounted charger or the e-werk charger which has been out for a while.

But it is a pain both to the overall weight and cost to have to factor in an external battery to carry and charge.

I will have to try and see if my Garmin does shut down while charging tonight when I get home.

Tried a solar charger before and it was useless after 4 days on the sunshine it still couldn’t fully charge a phone. That was a freeloader solar charger.

None of them seem to use very good solar panel technology.

I’m currently trying a solar charger to solely charge my mobile. It’s lasted a all week so far. It’s just been placed in the car dashboard window in the daytime and used the charge the phone at night (Nokia N8)

If it’s while you’re touring, you might find a AA to USB charger might be more suitable. Easily obtained batteries, don’t cost a lot, not much weight either.

For info just tried plugging my Garmin 800 for charging and it doesn’t turn off. It’s just fine and when you take the USB lead out it says ‘external power source lost’

So a dynamo charger should work just fine.

I’d add one of the Trent batterys to the system to allow for dual charging and some spare capacity.

A friend of mine is currently touring Asia on his bike which is fitted with a hub charger that connects at the stem cap. He reckons the charge isn’t steady enough for direct charging his iPad which he uses for GPS work and so he uses it to charge a battery which then charges his electronic devices.

Just looked at the stw news and exposure ahave a hub that’ll power a 650 lumen (450 at rest) light. Won’t be long till we all stick in the ‘night’ wheel and have a permanent 2000 lumen light source with excess power for charging the garmin etc. useless to you today though! 😉

by ‘topcap’ i assume you mean the Tout-Terrain ones?

From SJS…
The Plug
The Plug 2

Has anyone tried either of these? quite fancy one for my tourer too.

I have recently had a Croix de Fer built with a Shimano dynamo hub and the Tout-Terrain Plug 2 (as mentioned above). Works great for charging my iPhone, keeps the battery level constant even with the screen on full brightness + GPS active. It is by far the neatest solution I’ve come across, much better than the devices that attach to the fork/stem/whatever.

The top cap ones don’t work for me unfortunately as I’ve got carbon forks so no steerer tube hole.

But think a Schmit hub with an e-works or similar would be great.

by ‘topcap’ i assume you mean the Tout-Terrain ones?

Correct I couldn’t remember the name of it. It is attached to a Tout-Terrain Silk Road. My friend is really happy with the charger but as I said he has heard that it can produce spikes that fry electronic devices.

When I tour I like to get away from all that stuff… rely on a road atlas to get around, turn the phone off all day except to touch base for essentials and be self sufficient.

Its all about getting back to basics and all that IMO and thats what I love about it.

Seems somewhat backwards to minimize the weigh / amount of kit you carry to then add weight / complications by having a USB charging dynamo hub to keep in touch with the world / make sure you don’t get lost 😕

However if thats your thing then fair enough, Spa cycles in Harrogate / CTC forums worth a look

When I tour I like to get away from all that stuff… rely on a road atlas to get around, turn the phone off all day except to touch base for essentials and be self sufficient.

Fine when you are staying in Europe but my friend is heading to Nepal and then on through China to Mongolia. How many Atlases is he supposed to carry with him?

If you saw my kit list pieface, I don’t think you could call it luxury, and thank you I wondered how long it would take to get a post like yours.

Not asking about the ethics of touring, bit a solution for a question. Everybody to there own…..,

Thats the point, I know you’ll be minimalist in your kit, probably not even taking panniers seems at odds to me

Well it’s a choice….

No bother either way, just fancy mapping the ride. Rather than needing to be in touch.

I was looking at these the other day (20″ one for folder).
In my net travels, I came across a ‘pack’ that straps to the stem/TT that not only acts like a battery, it smoothes out power spikes too…

The most useless part is I can’t remember the name/brand, unfortunately!

DrP

Fair enough. I guess solar chargers just don’t cut it or the sun reliable enough?

I did 10 days riding on the US west coast last summer with a solar panel to charge things, it just about managed to keep my Garmin 705 running but didnt have enough to charge tthe battery, so it didnt work when it got dark.

A friend just borrowed my dynamo setup for a 1 week road tour. He was the only one with a dynamo, everybody else had a mixture of normal batteries & external battery powered chargers.

He just came back & reported that the dynamo kept not only his phone and GPS going, but as it charged anything in a couple of hours, he also charged everyone else’s phone and GPS every day for the whole week too, without any problems…… he then had infinite burn time on his light at night, and subsequently had to charge other people’s lights too!

There you go Rik, invite robdeanhove’s mate on your trip and you’re sorted…..

Where are you going that you have no access to mains power? I can understand the convenience factor but in the non 3rd world, you’ll never be far away from the mains (cafès, garages etc).

Having said that, anybody understand the difference between the TT The Plug 2 and The Plug 2+?

The plus has a battery included in it to keep things charging when you’re stationary I believe.

In my experience, the power available from a dynamo, everything, and for me this can mean depending on the trip: GPS, phone, rear light and head torch, plus some AAAs for a small camping head torch, can be charged before lunchtime, making the weight, cost and inefficiency of charging an external battery to then charge another battery (which has a large amount of loss) not something I want to have.

I’d go for the cheaper Plug 2.