portable Fuel Cell charger

[Franco]

Several years ago I came across "Fuel Cell Technology".
Hitachi was one of the brands that put some money into this research as well as people like Toshiba.
The idea is to generate electricity by just adding water to a "fuel cell".
This is the first generic (IE not specifically designed to work with a particular product) charger that I know of.
Not ready for retail but should be available soon.
http://www.powertrekk.com/product/
as well as being able to charge small devices (cameras/phones/MP3 players) directly via a USB connection , I suspect that it could be hooked up with one of the new AA/AAA chargers that can be charged via USB , so it looks rather promising to me.
Obviously not that use full for a short hike...
A funny comment I read about this was " what is wrong with solar panels ? we always have the sun, don't we ?"
(the guy was serious...)
Franco

[Tony]

Thanks Franco,

The Fuel Cell charger looks very interesting, I will look foward to the reviews.

Tony

[sailfish]

Interesting thought I didn't see anything about it's size, weight or price.
0utput, 1000mA @ 5V is usefull.

Regards,
Ken

[sthughes]

Looks interesting. At a likely price of $200 the cartriges will need to be cheap (or the journeys long and/or frequent) to make it worth while. But I can certainly see a market.

This site has a bit of info:
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/03/just-add-water-to-recharge-batteries.ars

[Franco]

The possible advantage is where several devices are used with incompatible batteries.
So rather than starting off with two or three extra batteries for each , one could just have a few cartridges and obviously only charge the ones that need to be charged.
Particularly on long expeditions where even Li Ion could self discharge.
Franco

[ninjapuppet]

hey thats a really innovative device.

I am already dreaming of bringing my laptop, my tv, my stereo, my fridge, etc with me up into the mountains.....