Paul and I are leaving on a cross-country train trip next week, for Jen and Shawn’s wedding in Colorado. I’m sure the view will be great, and I’m bringing a handful of books- but Paul and I are geeks and we need our electro-doodads. If only we had a way to run our Nintendo DS and PSP for the ~30 hours that the trip will take…
I sifted through my stockpile of junk, and came up with this: It’s kind of like a mega-size Minty Boost, or a heftier version of the Kensington power pack. The Minty Boost weighs in at about 6 Watt-hours, depending on the AA cells you use. The Kensington pack is rated at 7 Watt-hours, with a Lithium Ion battery. This brick occupies the middle-ground between the Minty Boost and a car jump-start battery, weighing in at 84 Watt-hours. It should run and charge a Nintendo DS for at least 30 hours.
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Turns out they had outlets on some of the newer cars, but not the one we were on. It worked pretty well- lasted through the whole trip, with power to spare. All I could have asked for is a charge level indicator. Maybe next time I’ll stick an AVR with an A/D converter in there 🙂
That’s pretty cool. Amtrak does have 110v AC outlets, though. 🙂
Turns out they had outlets on some of the newer cars, but not the one we were on. It worked pretty well- lasted through the whole trip, with power to spare. All I could have asked for is a charge level indicator. Maybe next time I’ll stick an AVR with an A/D converter in there 🙂