I need to find a way to charge my Garmin Edge on the WRT. Considering either a solar charger or some form of battery pack possibly running off AA's.
Does anybody have any advice or experience of either?

Using PowerMonkey setup, mini USB adaptor is fine

Thanks. Any experience of the solio classic? Been offered one by a mate. I see the power monkey has a bigger battery capacity.

No, have used the PowerMonkey setup or 4+ years, the solar charger is fine, just charge it from mains before going away, and top up daily.

No, have used the PowerMonkey setup or 4+ years, the solar charger is fine, just charge it from mains before going away, and top up daily.

I just got a PortaPow USB charger running on two AAs. Didn't get to test it much but it charged my HTC desire from 30% to full with a set of high capacity eneloops. It's very light, small and has a LED for finding stuff in the bag.

I've got a Vehu Pebble. They're £18.99 delivered:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003F5WEMO/r ... B003F5WEMO

Comes with a variety of charging tips that plug in via USB lead. I just use the lead that comes with my HTC.
Charges up over the mains or via USB and I get 2 full phone charges out of it. Capacity is stated at 5000mah.

Not really GPS related, more to do with phone battery life but I thought i'd mention a new app that i've found called 2xbattery. It basically shuts off all non-essential phone stuff that drain modern smartphone batteries. All that runs is the actual cell signal to receive calls and texts. Scheduled tasks like emails still run but in between the scheduled tasks, it practically runs as if the phone was in airplane mode. I'm getting 30-50% more out of my phone without changing my use habits.

I use a powerchimp, (powermonkey without the solar bit). It's ok, but I had a cheapo one that I lost, bought from poundland or some such horrible place, basically just a tube that took a single AA and a connector, seemed to get more charge into my GPS from a single AA from that than from two on the powerchimp.

MonkeySpacePilot wrote:I use a powerchimp, (powermonkey without the solar bit).

No it's not, the powermonkey is a rechargeable capacitor and doesn't take batteries like the chimp.

ah, I never realised that, when I bought it, the descriptions sounded like the solar charging was the only difference.

I think the need for solar charging is wholly dependent upon time out, but I ended up with three camera batteries and also had access to a generator when I originally purchased it.