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All photo's are Copyright of Scott Swalling or the tagged Photographer. (Background photo Scott Swalling Photography).

About Me:

24Hr MTBike racer and general bike rider, climber and mountaineer. Good coffee drinker and cake eater (any cake, seriously, don't leave your cake laying around). Also, I like to try new things that challenge me.

Friday 10 August 2012

Garmin Battery Pack by PowerTraveller

Sometime ago I bought a Garmin Battery Pack for my Garmin to keep it running for the 24hr races that I do. Most Garmins give out at about the 10-12hr mark dependent on the temperature and how you have it configured.  So something had to be done to record all the information I wanted to and be able to read the vital information I use when racing.

So the pack was ordered and received. It is shown below.


Garmin External Battery Pack
It is effectively a PowerTraveller PowerMonkey commissioned by Garmin, so it was clearly going to get use elsewhere in time.  The pack comes the battery, solar panel, varying adapters, rubber case and velcro strap for fastening it to your bars or stem.

Using it with the Garmin 705 on the bike for 24hr races it does what it says on the tin, no doubt and in an unobtrusive manner as you can mount it neatly with the rubber case and strap, not to mention rapidly (important for me as I only put it on when the Garmin internal battery is getting low).

Once it is mounted plugged in and turned on it provides the Garmin with more than enough charge to finish a 24hr race.

But being a PowerTraveller product and with me heading off to Alaska in June for a month long climbing expedition and PowerTraveller providing other team members with products I decided that I would chance my arm with this one.

Well what can I say, powering a phone, several camera and GoPro batteries it is fair to say that the PowerMonkey far exceeded expectations.  Sure it drained quickly due to its small size and it being overworked, but it worked.  With near full 24hr sun the solar panel dutifully charge the battery and when I needed to charge another product it was ready.  It coped brilliantly with the cold and I was very glad I chose to take it.  Other on the expedition also used PowerTraveller products and were very impressed with them.

PowerMonkey, what can I say I use it a lot and in the mountains and on the bike, it is just great.

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