I can see myself doing jumping-jacks, with an 85 pound pack on my back, for a quick charge of the GPS battery. I think I will stick w/ jthorson’s cordless battery charger.

solar! did someone say solar?

actually I think the most practical way to power a GPSr and save energy and be cost effective would be:
1. Use rechargeable batteries
2. But a solar charge and put it on
the dash of your car
I’ve been doing #1 for a long time, but have not spent the money on #2.

Better off spending buying an old diesel car and converting it yourself to run on french fry oil … the kits about $795

Tangent warning!

quote:

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Originally posted by EnergySaver:
Better off spending buying an old diesel car and converting it yourself to run on french fry oil … the kits about $795

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Or, spend about $50 in simple filters and junk drawer odds and ends and do the same. I bought my very first diesel (1982 Mercedes 300SD Turbo, $300) a few months back, and used waste vegitable oil from a local burger joint in it. Ran fantastic, cost me about $0.80/gal. Smelled like I was making french fries as I drove down the road.

There are three ways to run a diesel on waste vegitable oil (WVO); convert it at home to biodiesel, install a heated storage/delivery system to thin the oil (that’s the $795 system), or filter it and cut it with solevents (called running a blend).

I did the blend method. Tried a few, oddly enough my first blend gave me the best cold weather results: 80% waste oil cut with 20% regular unleaded gasoline (rug).

Same power as diesel, safe for most diesel engines, especially older ones. But do your research before doing this (disclaimer).

Sadly, my MB is no more. Unrelated to running WVO, the crankshaft pully bolt sheared off, $600 just to extract it with no guarentee of being ably to retap the crankshaft. Metal fatigue… bummer, engine runs great, but with no pully, there is no water pump, no power steering, no alternator etc.

So, I just picked up an odd one; 1985 Ford Tempo with a Mazda diesel in it. I bought it in Detroit, and driving home I got an actual 64.5 mpg! Now to start running waste oil in it

How to treat your rechargables depends mostly on what kind of rechargables they are.

Nickel Cadmium (Nicad) batteries are very prone to memory problems. If you do not completely discharge them before recharging, they will develop a “memory”. So let’s say you regularly only run them down to 40% of their available power. In not too long of a time, that 40% mark becomes their bottom end of usablility.

Nickel Metal Hydrides (NiMH’s) do not have as serious a memory problem. You can use them in a much more user-friendly manner. Just use them and recharge at will. They will, eventually, show a litt memory effect. But not nearly what NiCD’s show.

There are also Lithiom Ion batteries available. My newest digital camera came with one so I did a little internet reading to find out how to take care of it. What I found is that with a Lithium Ion battery, you want your first few charges to be complete charges, and then complete discharges. After that, treat it however you like.

So what do I use? I use NiMH’s. I’ve been using a few sets of those for several years now in my GPS and a couple different digital cameras. When I say “a few sets” that’s not because they died. It’s because I have so many devices that use AA’s that I bought about 3 4-packs of different rechargables. I also have one set of NiCads still in the mix, too. They run fine but I’ve noticed they don’t last too long any more.

One more thing…. Shelf life. Nicads & NiMH’s don’t stay charged terribly long. If you charged them last weekend, you may want to charge them again this weekend. It can be that short.

Oh — I forgot to add…. CacheCows car DOES smell like a french fryer!

[This message has been edited by OuttaHand (edited 09-30-2005).]