I am planning two fairly long trips to Bhutan and Mongolia next
year, where access to mains electricity is likely to be very
difficult for much of the time. I use an HHB Portadisc, which as
many of you will know runs on eight AAA rechargeable batteries. My
question is this: what are my options for recharging these on the
road?
Are there suitably efficient and fast solar chargers available? If
so, can anybody recommend models? What about chargers that could
plug into the cigarette lighter of a 4WD? Any recommendations on
these?
Finally, on a related issue, have users of the HHB also come across
what appears to me to be a rather inconvenient problem with regard
to the plastic battery holder into which the 8 AAAs are inserted?
That is, the weakness of the holder is such that the weight of the
batteries pulls the two halves of the holder apart, which after time
causes interruptions in power supply or simply an inability to use a
particular battery pack. To remedy this, I slip small narrow pieces
of card between the two halves of the pack, on the underside, to
prevent the contact from being broken in the upper section of the
joint between the two sections. While generally effective (though
requiring a small supply of such card on each trip!), this is a
rather inconvenient problem that causes the correct functioning of a
hi tech device to be dependant on a very low tech and unreliable
adaptation.
Geoff Carey
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