One of the lessons that Hurricane Sandy taught us is that Mother Nature can strike at any time and as a result you could be without power for days. My heart and prayers go out to those affected by the hurricane. To make matters worse another storm is bearing down on the northeast. While generators are great, there could be situations where there is no gas to run them. In those cases you are probably going to want to at least keep your cellphone going at a minimum.
K-TOR Pocket Socket Hand Generator Can Save The Day
Having a portable hand crank generator may be the difference between a charged cellphone battery and a dead one. The concept is simple. Plug in your USB charger in to the standard AC outlet on the Pocket Socket and plug in your phone. Then start cranking. Unfortunately there is no free lunch. If you stop cranking the handle, then you stop generating electricity and therefore you stop charging. You will definitely get a good workout for the time it takes to charge your battery, but I’d be willing to bet there were some folks out there that had no power and therefore a dead phone who would have had no problem cranking this handle for as long as it took to charge up there devices.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ5k36KZwX0
The K-TOR Pocket Socket generates 10W 120v DC at 2 cranks per second. How long does it take to charge your phone? The answer is the same amount of time it takes to charge your phone now. If you can get a decent charge in 10 minutes, then you will have to crank for 10 minutes.
You should definitely make one of these part of your emergency preparedness kit!
You can get the K-TOR Hand Crank Generator here.
I also keep one of these charged for shorter power outages.
UPDATE
Some of my readers were asking about or suggesting solar options. A solar charger is a great way to go too as long as you’ve got access to the sun 🙂 The nice part about this particular one is that you can charge it during the daylight and charge your phone each evening even if the sun has gone down.
Get a great one here.
Or get a small solar panel. The sun will still be shining, so a panel becomes very handy in a situation like this. You can get them from around $20 and up on Amazon.
The Vagabond mini from Paul Buff works great as well. It is a bit more pricey but you can charge several phones, laptops, etc. many times over.
http://www.paulcbuff.com/vm120.php
I agree with Tracy – the Paul Buff Vagabond Mini can charge a lot of phone and even run a laptop for some time. I have used it several times for non-flash purposes.
http://www.paulcbuff.com/vm120.php
There’s always fire as an option. Check out http://www.Biolitestove.com for a multi-functional solution. Awesome for camping or emergency situations when you need small devices charged.
I was considering a solution myself as I live in South Florida and wanted something in an emergency for my iPhone. The Vagabond mini looks good but at $230 it is very pricey. I was thinking something like the rechargeable Monospace would be good for short emergencies, like Terry said. But any situation that lasted longer than a day….
as I saw one Sandy survivor comment that the stores were empty of all batteries (didn’t say if it was before or after the storm). So I would look to get a charger that took 4 AA batteries and stock up on long shelf-life lithium or low-discharge NiMH batteries. In this scenario I don’t think a solar charger is much of an option.