12v battery question - phone charger?

[elkyinzer]

I have a couple 12v batteries sitting around I just use in my kayak for the sonar. Would like to use them car camping to charge phones and other crap. Maybe even hook a solar panel up to them for extended trips. Anyone have experience doing this? What do I need? Not well versed in electronics so keep it simple.

 

[COlineman78]

Car batteries are 12V, so all you will need is a car charger and adapter like this one: http://smile.amazon.com/BESTEK-Batt...3W3SHCIXANNT5&psc=1&ref_=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl If you don't have a USB car charger here is one: http://smile.amazon.com/iXCC-Univer...I3KE/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1459387311&sr=8-6

Solar chargers, there are plenty of options:

http://smile.amazon.com/Coleman-Sol...GTII/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1459386551&sr=8-3
http://smile.amazon.com/20W-12V-Sol...P0EA/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1459387044&sr=8-5

More expensive, but one of the best:
http://smile.amazon.com/Go-Power-GP...K2/ref=sr_1_31?ie=UTF8&qid=1459386902&sr=8-31

 

[elkyinzer]

Whoa, thanks had no idea it was that simple. It has these little clip terminals but I can figure something out. Was thinking I would need some kind of converter specific to that battery.

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

My power was out the other day: If I was supposed to be more long term I'd have installed the female connectors on the battery connections to it (the rest of the harness was already sitting in a box of stuff).

Same thing basically as recommended above.

 

[Dos Perros]

Just make sure you don't put 12 volts to your iphone. I would guess most of the adapters have voltage regulators but some might not. Your car for example makes 12 volts at the cigarette lighter but the thing you plug into it drops it to 5 volts for your phone (USB is a standard).

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

For what its worth I'm not aware of any USB ports (whether a cig adapter style or ones that have terminals to wire 12V to directly) that don't have the voltage drop down built in already.

 

[Dos Perros]

For what its worth I'm not aware of any USB ports (whether a cig adapter style or ones that have terminals to wire 12V to directly) that don't have the voltage drop down built in already.

Well I mean if you bought a female USB plug and cut the wire in half and just hard wired to a 12V battery. That's a no no.

View attachment 35320

 

[kevin.vidrine]

We set up a solar panel and 2 car batteries in our elk cabin this year. It's a 200 watt solar panel with a voltage regulator box and 2 car batteries. Worked great. We used 12 volt plugs with alligator clips to attach to the battery then just plugged in the little USB adapters into that.

 

[stuckbuck]

Wow, never thought of this! How many charges have you guys got off of one battery?


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[COlineman78]

Most iPhones are 5.5-6.5 Wh. A Motorcycle battery like the one pictured is around 420 Wh and a car battery is about double at 840 Wh. That means that it can charge an iPhone approximately 64 or 120 times. That being said you will lose capacity over time, so realistically it will be much less.

 

[stuckbuck]

Have any of y'all used something like this?

Makita ADP05 LXT Lithium-Ion Cordless Power Source, 18V https://www.amazon.com/dp/B019WI5XXO/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_Ly2oxb842S7DA

It's pretty light being lithium. Wonder how many charges it would provide?


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[COlineman78]

Have any of y'all used something like this?

Makita ADP05 LXT Lithium-Ion Cordless Power Source, 18V https://www.amazon.com/dp/B019WI5XXO/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_Ly2oxb842S7DA

It's pretty light being lithium. Wonder how many charges it would provide?

After looking at it on HomeDepot that item isn't actually a battery, but an adapter for Makita LiIon drill batteries to output USB. You can see in the pictures on the HD site you can see how it's used: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Makita-18-Volt-LXT-Lithium-Ion-Cordless-Power-Source-ADP05/206816298

That being said, the 2 Ah battery that can be used with it provides roughly 36 Wh, so that would result in approximately 6 charges. However that's 6.4oz for the adapter and 15.8oz for the battery (22.2 oz total).