"Power Bank" external chargers

[Scooter]

I had several people emailing me at my DJ account looking for advice about power banks. A power bank is basically a portable battery you can use to recharge your phone, etc.

I realized that these devices (around $30) might be useful for a lot of planters who are living in bush camps. I know that quite a few planters in my camp use their phones as alarm clocks, but there's a problem with a lot of congestion at our charging station every night. Instead of spending an hour to charge a phone, it might be better to spend two hours to charge a power bank, and then you can keep the power bank in your tent and maybe get three or four full phone charges out of it, which means you wouldn't have to hit the charging station in the mess tent for a full shift at a time.

If you want to learn more, you can either watch the video that I put up on my DJ channel, or read the written blog post that I did. Here's the post:

http://djbolivia.blogspot.ca/2015/01/in ... table.html

And here's the video:



It's probably faster to skim through the blog post, although I don't have photos embedded in the blog post.

[theBushman]

I use an Eliminator model I found on clearance, has an inverter built in. Li-Ion battery takes all day to charge but runs my phone for a week. With 2 usb ports, a 120v inverter and the lamp feature, it changes the tent dynamic entirely.

With a tablet or laptop, I like to run down the onboard battery, and use the bank to run and charge to double up on runtime.

Also comes in handy to charge cordless tools while away from other power.