Share your charging stories

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Welcome to share your charging experiences and stories with us! We can learn from each other and improve our charging routines. It could include different power gears, electronic devices, such as, batteries, battery chargers, camera chargers, solar panels, power stations...

A customer shared his charging habits before. He is an avid outdoorsman who frequently goes camping and hiking. He relies on his collection of 18650 batteries to power the flashlights, headlamps outdoors. Before heading out on a trip, he always makes sure to fully charge all of these batteries with using an efficient 4-slot charger. During the hiking trip, he carries a spare set of batteries with him in case the primary set runs out of power. He also has a PB2S as an emergency charger & power bank. Connecting with a fordable solar panel, it helps charge the phone, and other small USB devices easily outdoors.

 

[letschat7]

I don't know if this counts but I used to be a computer power user. I had a Thinkpad that I would use all day every day.

If for some reason I couldn't use mains electric and my batteries ran out I would have to finish up early and go home. Seeing this problem I bought and extra high capacity battery pack from Lenovo. This greatly extended my operating times.

At some point this was working well and I get a Peli attache to carry all this equipment. After a full day of using batteries and no recharging I realise I need more batteries.

In the end I have 4 batteries with the ability to work over 24 hours with the fan on laptop at full power in a hot environment, connected to internet, using plugged in devices, and the speakers playing music at full volume. With a water tight crush proof case that holds all this safely if it ended up getting thrown on some rocks in the creek for some reason.

I ended up using Eneloops from Apple and Sanyo for my wireless mouse. That was only thing that would get damaged and need replaced. The Sanyo charger was USB and discontinued because of being a poor design but was fit for my purpose.

I would often plug in the charger and hot swap batteries in the laptop instead of turning off and changing. Nothing bad happened doing that luckily!

 

[letschat7]

I'm not exactly such a fan of paying the power bill. I also spend most of my time away from home working. At one job alone I work 60 hours a week which is on going.

For lighting I more often than not bounce a flashlight beam off the ceiling and call it a day. With a Led Lenser X21R, which is the 5000 lumen rechargable model, you can have a very well lit room but only for some hours. Elsewhere in my arsenal of light I have a P17R, Streamlight SL20, Fenix bike light, and some assorted battery operated Maglites, LL P17, and Princeton Tec Lanterns but they hardly get used nowadays.

Well I'm a fan of charging them at work for the free energy. My boss notices and makesjoke about it and so long as I don't unplug any work related items it will be fine otherwise I'm banned from doing so. Only this is my weekend job. I'd like to do so at my other job but maybe someone would notice.

I spent sometime thinking about it and noticed that my workmates often charge powerbanks for mobiles in the break room. I think I could get some Led Lenser ones that use 18650 or such batteries and charge 2 seperate ones in the same day and people would think I had one and use the removable batteries in some lighting I use at home.