Dynamo hubs

I would guess waterproofness and a good and stable voltage output

Indeed, reliability is the key here, I'm not comfortable yet to make my own, and rather not risk damaging my electronic equipment if I made a slight mistake.

chicken.jpg

Valid points. Casing and weatherproofing are things i have think about. Planning to build and test and all that jazz later this year when i have extra dorrah to build wheelset etc.

Supernova Plug seems very expensive as compared to competitors for the sake of neatness. I've just purchased a Busch and Muller USB Werk which gets good reviews and is reasonably priced (£50) if you're just after something to charge phones, cameras, GPS units.

I had the Werk, they work really well, you just gotta figure out the voltage otherwise it take 5 hours to charge 10%.

Would highly recommend using it to charge a battery pack instead and charge the rest of the electronic in the evening.

I have the new Luxos on my Brompton powered by a shimano dynohub..it charges my phone very well and is nice. The only issue is the brackets a bit bendy, this coupled with small wheels makes for vibratory things happening.

Another vote for the Luxos - the new version seems to have sorted the waterproofing problems that plagued the early models a year ago. Very happy with mine - and don't find the bracket remotely bendy. In fact, tried to bend it (well, one that had come with a Cyo, but the same bracket) for bodging to handlebars, and it was bloody difficult.

Those commercial usb-thingies seem damn expensive. Do they have some super speshul component wizardy inside or am i missing something here?

Yes, if you just provide 5V on the power lines of a USB cable (without making it a "charging cable") then the device will probably only draw a maximum of 100mA. It may also trigger the device to turn off so that it cannot be used whilst plugged into a power source.

To draw a higher power (500mA) most devices will need to negotiate (via the USB data pins) with the power supply, or you need to use a "charging" cable (see below). This is the extra super speshul stuff that exists in some of the commercial usb-thingies.

Also, the negotiation for higher power may also mean that the device can charge whilst still being available for use.

Some of this behaviour (device switching off when being charged) is also seen with different USB cables, one being a full on USB "data" cable and others being "charging" cables (or "dumb" cable) which have one of the data pins grounded - this tells the device to just pull as much power as it likes without negotiation.

Regardless of cable, my Edge 705 will go into charging mode (and end the current track recording) when I plug it in to the power source (a PortaPow USB battery pack), but I'm able to turn it back on once this happens so that it can be used whilst charging.

If the Edge 705 is plugged in to the power source when first turned on then it only whinges about "External Power Lost" if the cable wiggles loose, it doesn't end the track when the connector wiggles again and power is restored.

For a ride >10 hours I start with the GPS plugged in to the battery pack and continue this way until the power pack is exhausted. It means I can use the backlight on the GPS (I tend to ride with the map page showing and navigate against a track displayed on the map as a light blue line, I stopped using prompted navigation ages ago) and never worry about power. For a prolonged stop I'll try and top up the PortaPow pack from the mains.

The USB for the LUXOS appears to perhaps be less of a faff that the Plug III..

https://issuu.com/borjoulin/docs/sp2015dm?e=0

New SP SV-9 - 309g for 100mm OLD version. Would be right up the faster (6w3V @ 186.km/h), weight weenie's street. Looking at you @Dammit! :)

Hah- looks nice, I'm more likely to use the thru-axle version at the moment though.

What are people's thoughts on which is better for touring - a dynamo or portable solar panel?

There are the obvious considerations: difference in charging depending on sunlight (and nighttime), not automatically powering lights etc.

But solar panels are great in that you can often charge multiple devices, charge whilst not cycling and can be used on a different bike/ not on a cycling trip.

Dynamo every single time, solar is temperamental and take forever to charge.

This

Think (hope) that the USB werk is a simplified version of the E-Werk that is optimised for phones and the like without any faffing around.

You're quite right it wasn't bendy...it was loose in its washer type thing. I've packed it out with a thinner washer and all is well.

But solar panels are great in that you can often charge multiple devices, charge whilst not cycling and can be used on a different bike/ not on a cycling trip.

Output from solar can politely be described as useless - you wouldn't reliably charge even one device with a panel that was reasonable to carry, especially in UK weather.

Get a battery with multiple outputs from TeckNet or Anker or someone, connect it to the dynamo and power the devices from that.

Solar chargers aren't that bad, my small solar monkey can charge my phone fully and still put a half charge into my kindle. which isn't bad for a small panel. Still I would also recommend hub and battery pack!

If you're mainly camping (camp site), the majority of them offer power as an option, sometime it's much quicker to charge the external battery in one hours than several hours using the solar panel.

A massive battery says 10,000+mAh would be a better option, can easily make your phone last a week from a single charge (iPhone usually have 1900mAh to give you an idea).

I ordered an EasyAcc battery (12,000mAh) for my tour soon, someone on here used one and was happy with it.

I use one of these (Power Bank) it can charge phone 3 times give or take and is pretty handy.

The bigger the capacity the better though so Ed's looks good, what's it like with cold?
I'm yet to use mine in anything too low so not sure how it will hold up!

20,000mAh battery anyone?

Suddenly dynamo doesn't seemed that useful anymore with that much power.

Unless you don't camp at a power source regularly

Interesting...I wonder how long that takes to fully recharge?

That would be lot cheaper than get dynamohub and usb-charger, but on the other hand that's heavier and even though that thing ain't huge, it still adds to things that you have to carry. Not that it matters that much unless going light touring/bike packing.

I got one of these, for the price it's mint!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000X30AYA/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1