Buy The Power

I was looking through my favourite alternative energy site, ModernOutpost to see what was available to recharge phone and/or batteries.

Solar - well, I have the SolarUno, and to tell the truth, there isn't enough sun in Scotland. But I found that I can use it to take power from AAA batteries and use it to charge up my mobile phone.

George went for the Freeloader, but you have to find a power supply to recharge if the solar panels don't pick up enough charge.

Wind up - I have a hand-wound recharger for the phone, and it doesn't seem to charge the phone at all. I have tried, and the "charging" symbol comes up, but I may be winding too fast or too slow. Never just right.

Hence looking for alternatives. I found the shake-n-light. Sorry, that should be ShakeLight

Onward I looked, eventually finding the Tekkeon myPower Go. The ModernOutpost description says "Use it to charge batteries via USB port, and then use that same power to run your portable USB devices". But the page was incomplete, so off to the Tekkeon website. Expansys sells the unit in the UK for £12.95 plus P&P. Takes 4 AA batteries and uses them to recharge units via a USB output.

I only use AA batteries for the point-and-click camera. The Sony camera hardly drains any power, but I usually carry some spare AA batteries in my pack. The myPower can be used as a recharger. But I'm not looking at it for that, as I'm more likely to buy extra AA batteries on a long hike than spend an evening in a building, recharging AA rechargeables.

A detailed review can be found on gearDiary.com Now, I remember speaking to Darren about rechargers, and he found that some batteries worked better than others (i.e. Duracell wasn't as good as Energizer). I may run some tests, but I doubt that I'll waste the battery power finding out, saving it for a real field test.

Unit ordered.