ArcticScape Adventures - Filed under 'power'

Powering up is hard to do...

Ok, ok, ok...so maybe the nuts and bolts of power generation and storage is not all the tricky, but fickle weather, plenty of that here, certainly is a hurdle to "creating" that power.

My technical bag of tricks boils down to the following:

1x BGAN Wideye Sabre 1 satellite modem/dish for highspeed transmission

ASUS eeePC netbook for writing blogs, editing images and Skype video calls with the School for All Seasons in Minnesota. (A special thanks to Tom Sjogren at ExploresWeb - www.explorersweb.com - for the loan of this netbook).

1x Iridium satellite phone for making calls anywhere - and I mean anywhereSony DSC-HX5 for images and vidoe is a sweet little camera with a built-in, power-hungry, GPS component for capturing the "where" in the photo meta data

1x Apple iPhone for capturing vlogs for future posting. I don't use this for much else out here unless I am running low on caribou to count as I fall asleep and need some easy listening to send me to dreamland.

To re-power these devices I use 2x Tekkeon 3450 batteries. These act as the recipient of the power generated by my 26w, flexible solar panel.

I've found on a good sunny day I can just about get both the batteries charged. These batteries will then provide almost enough juice to all of the above - with the exception of the Iridium which I packed along 4 batteries to last the entire trip and my iPhone which is getting minimal use and holding steady.

Now, a good day means sun, sun, sun and it has been exceptionally shy this past week. Today (Friday) I was able to get a good charge going, but since my netbook and satellite modem had been depleted over the previous days that power is now all but gone from recharging those devices. I am hoping for sunny skies tomorrow.

Interesting to some of you might be that with the 24 hours of "daylight" the panels will continue to draw in a bit of power while I am sleeping in my tent - I am really milking them for all they're worth.

Al that to say, it's a game to be self-reliant, but good planning and a happy sky make it all come together.

jim

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Expedition Power...

In the quest for a power storage solution, I've looked at a multitude of options. Those looking to store power on extended trips have few really solid options that aren't either heavy or disposable - ie, use them up and dump them in the trash. In 2007 I setup the Will Steger Foundation expedition to Baffin Island with a solution that provided the power they needed using six, heavy (the kit was referred to as "El Diablo") solid lead acid batteries. On this expedition, weight was less of an issue and it proved itself a good solution after 3 months of dogsledding on Canada's Baffin Island. For trips where weight reduction is critical, this simply won't cut it.

In 2008, Will Steger returned to the Arctic and this time took along some relatively new, rechargeable batteries by Brunton that were much lighter in weight and included some interesting features such as a 5 volt output for devices like the iPods. The team could go straight from an array of portable solar panels to the batteries with relative ease. It was a good solution on the surface, but proved problematic on the long haul over the southern shores of Ellesmere Island and more than one call needed to be made to Brunton tech support to sort out power issues. I used the same batteries on a short car camping trip out west and had mechanical failure issues and overheating.

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Powering up is hard to do...

Expedition Power...

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