Charging Vexilar/cell phones

[FranktheTank24]

Is there any other way to charge your electronics without a generator while staying in a sleeper? Thanks!

[fishwater]

You can charge a cell phone off a flasher battery with a car charger. I'd just bring extra flasher batteries for your trip.

[bobbymalone]

Like fishwater says you can charge your cell phone from a 12v battery, but you can't charge that 12v battery without some kind of generator. Power has to come from somewhere.

The only option that comes to mind for charging without a gas powered genrator is to use a wind powered generator or a solar panel array. Expense-wise I am betting that either of those options have a higher upfront cost than a gas powered generator.

image stolen from olbaidhh:

[SalmonJedi]

Our group stays out in a sleeper for 3 nights every year... Being the nerds that we are - we like to keep the laptops/cell phones/vexilars charged up so we've come up with some interesting ways to keep them charged. First two years we drove to the house so it was pretty simple - crank up the car at night for an hour or so and use and inverter in it to charge some items up. We added some solar panels last year which were good for charging about a vex battery per day. For our trip this year (we leave in 3 days!! YEAH!) we made a "power cooler" as we will be bombered out to the house. 65 Amp Hour batter mounted inside a cooler with a 400 watt inverter attached. A few 12v cigarette jacks mounted on the outside as well. I believe my buddy will be bringing the solar panels along to recharge the big battery. I'm not sure why we go through all this trouble - We are supposed to be unplugging and concentrating on fishing right!?!?

I REALLY like the small wind turbine pictured there - I want one!

[eurolarva]

You nerds are going to have to either bring extra Vexilar batteries or bring a couple of deep cell batteries from your fishing boats up. A Vex battery will need at least 5 hours charging from a good 110 volt source. If you bring a 600 amp deep cell battery along ( fleet farm 60 dollar ) you can run all of your flashers for at least 5 days without a re charge.

[SalmonJedi]

I guess I used the term "vexilar" a little generically... We actually are running lowrance ice machines (x67/m68) that sip batteries so we can get over two full days on one vex battery -so really only one recharge a piece is needed.

My buddy bought one of those expensive Optima batteries for the "power cooler" so we'll see how it does.

I guess running out of power wouldn't be as bad as running out of beverages

[bak2MN]

Or bait!!

[FranktheTank24]

Thanks guys. I think we're going to try and bring a deep cell baterry with. Well that's the plan. Thanks again for the info.

[SpitnArgueDuckClub*]

We took a fully charged marine battery and a 400 watt inverter up a couple of weeks ago. Charged the vex batteries with it and powered the tv/dvd player for the kids at night. It lasted all three nights we were in the sleeper.