Woot: XPal Portable Li-Po Battery Pack $15.99
 

Did you guys see what was on Woot (Sat 2/14). It's a Lithium ion powered battery pack with several connector plugs. It looks like one of them fits the Nokia Tablets perfect and would be an excellent purchase for those needing more power.

Go take a look

http://sale.images.woot.com/XPal_Har...kohnDetail.jpg

Re: Woot: XPal Portable Li-Po Battery Pack $15.99
 

Meh, the Tekkeon MP1550 is way better. Not only can you get more charge time out of it, but you can also use either disposable or rechargeable batteries in it to recharge your device. And if you add a set of four 2500mah AA's, it'll give you 5000mah@5v vs the 2000mah of this unit. Plus, instead of just 500 charges, you can get 1500 with a good set of rechargeable AA's, making it way cheaper in the end.

The only advantage the Woot unit has is the plug pack, but you can buy one of those for just a few bucks at Walmart. So in the long term picture, the Tekkeon is still the better deal by miles.

Re: Woot: XPal Portable Li-Po Battery Pack $15.99
 

Well, the other advantage is that li-poly wont be drained dead in a month whether or not you use it, so it's somewhat more appropriate as an emergency backup.

Re: Woot: XPal Portable Li-Po Battery Pack $15.99
 

I've just bought a very similar bit of kit made by Phillips from my local asda in the UK for a Tenner at the start of the week. The same pack is on Amazon and elsewhere for £30.

So far it has been very useful. charged every device I can plug into it.

Re: Woot: XPal Portable Li-Po Battery Pack $15.99
 

Not a problem. Just buy LiPoly AA's. You can get them for about the same price as NiMH batteries these days. The only trick currently is finding someone who carries them.

Re: Woot: XPal Portable Li-Po Battery Pack $15.99
 

i got myself one of those, the one that combine battery and charger in one.

but lately it seems to have developed some kind of issue. it seems to think that there is something in the usb port even when its not (if i understand the flashing correctly), resulting in needless drain :(

Re: Woot: XPal Portable Li-Po Battery Pack $15.99
 

Raiden, if I read the Newegg listing correctly, is the Tekkeon device actually able to charge rechargeable AA batteries that I place in the unit as well as supply power the other direction? In other words, the Tekkeon can actually act as a AA battery charger if I hook it up to a computers USB?

If so, that would be awesome!

Re: Woot: XPal Portable Li-Po Battery Pack $15.99
 

Yeah, the Tekkeon 1550 both acts as a power pack and a battery charger. So yes, you can do both. That's also a big bonus of the device.

Re: Woot: XPal Portable Li-Po Battery Pack $15.99
 

Philips has the same thing and i am using it during my travels to charge my N95 and N810 works well and charges both devices full not at the same time though

Re: Woot: XPal Portable Li-Po Battery Pack $15.99
 

Or you can get the new NiMH batteries that don't lose their charge. Like the Sanyo Eneloops.

Michael

Re: Woot: XPal Portable Li-Po Battery Pack $15.99
 

They don't not lose charge, they just lose it more slowly. Honestly, though, this li-poly model is a lot cheaper. ;)

Re: Woot: XPal Portable Li-Po Battery Pack $15.99
 

Can you charge LiPol AAs in a "normal" charger (the kind you'd use for NiCad and NiMh batteries)?

Re: Woot: XPal Portable Li-Po Battery Pack $15.99
 

OH, interesting information magog. I've got some 2500mah NiMH Energizers, and you can only really store them at full power for a week before they start bleeding off, and they're dead by the end of 2 weeks. (of course, that could just be an energizer issue.) So you have to charge them the day before you go on a trip. It's kinda annoying. So where do you get these wonderful Sanyo Eneloops at? I'd like to pick up an 8pack of them.
As far as I know, that would be a no. At least not the ones I've seen. They're always advertised as needing a special charger because you have to charge them differently. But then again, that could just be marketing spin to sell unnecessary extras. Energizer did that for years until people got wise.

Re: Woot: XPal Portable Li-Po Battery Pack $15.99
 

Well that's true. Sanyo claims they lose 15% of their charge per year.

Which still makes them suitable for things that regular NiMHs aren't good for: remotes, cordless mouses, bluetooth keyboards, etc.

I also found they worked great in my old MP3 player and camera. I didn't find the loss of charge noticeable.

That's true. The Eneloops aren't cheap (although they have come down a lot in price since I bought mine). And in this instance, you'd have to buy the batteries separately from the portable battery pack, so you're looking at $40 vs $16.

But personally, I'm trying to avoid devices that don't let you replace the battery.

Re: Woot: XPal Portable Li-Po Battery Pack $15.99
 

I got them in Canada at The Source by Circuit City (formerly Radio Shack). They seem to be available online all over the place.

http://www.google.com/products/catal...324#ps-sellers

Re: Woot: XPal Portable Li-Po Battery Pack $15.99
 

Lipoly batteries require a special charger because they'll explode violently if allowed to charge continually. The special charger cuts off the juice after they're full.

Chargers for NIMH allow a trickle of current into the battery to keep it topped off.

Re: Woot: XPal Portable Li-Po Battery Pack $15.99
 

Yeah, ditto here too. That's why I went with the Tekkeon 1550, because I could change batteries. That way, if I ran down the one set, I didn't need to scramble and find a place to charge it before I could use it again. I could just toss in a new set of batteries and just keep going.
Sweet. I'll see if I can find those in the US here then.
Ah, good info to know.

Re: Woot: XPal Portable Li-Po Battery Pack $15.99
 

I saw some Sanyo Eneloops at Costco.

Re: Woot: XPal Portable Li-Po Battery Pack $15.99
 

I've got the Tekkeon and love it for the obvious reasons, but your math is off.
The AAs work out to 4*2.500mah*1.2V=12.000mwh=1.2Wh (1.2V is the rated voltage of NiMH rechargeable batteries).
This unit is rated at 2.000mah*5V=10.000mwh=1Wh.

With a bit of loss due to the DC/DC converter circuit required to boost the ~4.8V to 5V, they work out to about the same usable capacity.

So it works out to what is the biggest benefit:
The ability to use off-the-shelf batteries, or the much thinner design and lack of shelf-loss that you'd experience with NiMH batteries.

Plus, at this price the batteries are included, where the Tekkeon requires you supply batteries.

Also, this is about 1/3 the price I found anywhere else for this (XPal) unit.

Re: Woot: XPal Portable Li-Po Battery Pack $15.99
 

Well, the advantage I see with the Tekkeon is that A) you don't need to charge it before you can use it. You just swap batteries and keep going. B) You can use either rechargeables or off the shelf batteries, which means you can 1) use it anywhere you can get batteries, or 2) use it with a collection of rechargeable batteries which will save you money while providing convenience. C) It can be used to charge batteries.

That flexibility alone is money in the bank for me. If I had the Xpal, I could use it once to charge my NIT, but then I'd be out of luck until I had a chance to charge it again. With the Tekkeon, as stated above, I just swap batteries and keep going. Which means, I'm only limited to the amount of things I can charge, and for how long, and for as many times as I can carry batteries with me.

Case in point. I went to CES earlier this year. I could charge 8 batteries overnight while I slept to have them ready for the next day. Then as I needed things charged, I whipped out the Tekkeon, charged them, swapped batteries, and was ready for the next item. :) It worked great for me.

Re: Woot: XPal Portable Li-Po Battery Pack $15.99
 

Most of the results on the Google search page are places you can buy them. . . .

For anybody interested in reading more on this new NiMH technology and how well it works, there's a nice review over here.

Re: Woot: XPal Portable Li-Po Battery Pack $15.99
 

dont forget to check on it every few months or so. i seem to have killed mine by forgetting to check on it for maybe 4-5 months, and now im not sure if its the electronics or something else but it seems it will not hold a charge...

Re: Woot: XPal Portable Li-Po Battery Pack $15.99
 

Today I happened to find the Philips pack reported by Un27Pee for 30 euros - I took it. It's the SCE4420 - technical data are online on Philips' site: it's a 2000 mAh li-pol pack, and can output a maximum current of 350 mA. While I'm now in the process of charging it (has a mini-usb input port, but no mains charger included in the box :-( ), I'll tell you another story...

...the tale of a cheap chinese solar charger and how I made it work (see attached photos).

I got it at an electronics fair for 10 euros and its tech specs seemed nice: 1500 mAh li-pol battery, solar cell for charging or usb input port, 5V output, with 2 ports, one with several mobile phone tips, the other plain USB (activated by a switch).
When home I charged it, to discover that the current coming out from its tips was insufficient to charge any Nokia device I tried (n810, e90, n95, 5200). Neither n810 nor e90 were waked to a charging state when attached, while the 5200 unit was more verbose, reporting on its display that the charger was not the right type (!).

I have been upset, of course, for a week or so, then I imagined that the USB output could be someway more generous in terms of Coulombs per second... I had at home a spare USB-to-mobile adapter with the right tip, tried it and voilà: my devices were happy to get enough current, this time.

So, don't buy any similar charger for your tablet unless you have a usb-to-small-nokia-tip adapter. They're quite common at phone or electronics shop; in the second photo, it's the black one with the retractable wire, near the solar charger with its original - not working - cable.

Re: Woot: XPal Portable Li-Po Battery Pack $15.99
 

TSO: I had that issue with a couple NiMH batteries I left on the shelf too long and didn't use enough. It turns out that by discharging them dead as dead gets, recharging them, then repeating the cycle a couple times exercises the battery and brings them back to life. It might also recover your unit.

Re: Woot: XPal Portable Li-Po Battery Pack $15.99
 

im looking into trying that. still, these devices are li-pol, not NiMH, so i may damage it more then recover it :(

also, the manual says that when all leds stop flashing, its charged. thing is that the logo led will not stop flashing even when all the others have, so im a bit confused...

Re: Woot: XPal Portable Li-Po Battery Pack $15.99
 

seems there are two versions, the 4420 is only the battery, while the 4430 is the battery and a universal usb charger.

Re: Woot: XPal Portable Li-Po Battery Pack $15.99
 

The lithium slowly oxidizes and the batteries become useless. Most lifespans of li-ion batteries is about 2 years. I'm not sure about li-poly; I think it might be shorter.

You can keep NIMH around for years just by re-conditioning them once in a while (re-conditioning is charge/discharge repeatedly).

If you are like me (amateur photog) and use NIMH AA or AAAs a lot, I cannot recommend getting a good charger strongly enough. IMO, the lacrosse alphapower charger is the best. It has selectable charge currents and one-touch reconditioning that brings old batteries back to like-new capacities.

Re: Woot: XPal Portable Li-Po Battery Pack $15.99
 

Buy.com has it for $14.99 shipped, http://www.buy.com/prod/xpal-portabl...208289392.html

bun