Gadget chargers for a road trip?

August 7, 2007 3:23 PM

Going on a road trip with an unprecedented (for us) number of gadgets. What's the best solution for keeping them all charged?

We're taking a week-long trip in the car, and we'll have, at least:

-- 3 ipods
-- 1 iphone
-- 2 blackberrys
-- 2 laptops
-- 2 digital cameras

Does anyone have any in-car solutions they really like? Do the lighter-to-DC converters work?

posted by crickets to travel & transportation (8 comments total)

lighter socket is DC. what you're going to want is an AC converter with enough wattage to run everything, the biggest one you can run off of a lighter socket will probably run everything and cost you around $130. anything bigger will have to be wired to the battery or alternator. plug in a power strip and you'll be good to go.
posted by knowles at 3:31 PM on August 7, 2007

something like this should take care of your needs for even cheaper than i originally thought, you'll probably pay more if you get one at a truck stop along the way though.
posted by knowles at 3:41 PM on August 7, 2007

I've used a 400 watt inverter connected to a power strip for two laptops and some camera chargers without any problems. Also carry jumper cables in case you discharge the battery too much (this is possible if you use the devices with the car off)
posted by pantsrobot at 4:00 PM on August 7, 2007

are you staying in hotels at night? for a lot of gadgets you might able to charge everything overnight and have it last the day. each of these things probably lasts at least 3 hours and hopefully your passengers will not be using all of them at once. On a weeklong roadtrip we managed to survive with no in-car charging. Cameras were turned on only long enough to take photos and then quickly shut off, music came from the car stereo, and the one time a laptop ran out of juice (while writing a blog entry) we plugged into the wall at a restaurant while eating lunch to recharge it.
posted by PercussivePaul at 4:13 PM on August 7, 2007

How much of that charges off USB? Because I assume the laptop has USB ports...
posted by krisjohn at 4:38 PM on August 7, 2007

How about one of these solar powered messenger bags for all the not-laptop gadgets? You can plug it into your car's cigarette lighter.

Or if you go with one of knowles' inverters, maybe pair it with one of these cord organizers from KangaRooom.
posted by notyou at 6:02 PM on August 7, 2007

We have a converter similar to what knowles linked to. It works great; my fiancé leaves it in the vehicle all the time and charges his cell phone on his way to work.
posted by desjardins at 7:12 PM on August 7, 2007

iGo makes some nice chargers that can run off either ac or dc from an auto, have adapter that can fit a variety of devices (including USB) and can charge 2 things at a time. That could take care of everything but the cameras. If they take a proprietary battery, then I imagine the car chargers will be expensive enough that it would be cheaper to buy an inverter and use it to provide ac for all the stock chargers for your devices.

Whatever you do, don't expect a cheap ten or fifteen dollar cigarette lighter to USB power adapter to charge even a single device in less than a week.
posted by Good Brain at 7:56 PM on August 7, 2007