MINI TURBINE UPDATE.....

CHARGING THE GARMIN

 Last weekend while I was away on the short cyclopacking trip I started to test out the Uniross HY Mini Wind Charger that I featured in a recent post.
I have mounted the turbine on the front fork of my touring bike. The clamp fitting it was supplied with fitted the standard sized fork without any problem.
One small difficulty that I did encounter was concerning the bolt fitting that attaches to the clamp itself... It was too big. I found that once screwed up tight on the clamp with the turbine in the best position, the plastic finger grip of the bolt fouled the spokes. Luckily amongst my various bits and pieces in my spares box I had a similar styled bolt that was just that bit shorter. Once fitted it gave maximum clearance for the spokes. That was the only problem that I had with the fitting of the unit.

The clamp itself is attached to a mount that the turbine slots into. The mount  has a small catch that locks the turbine in position and stops it jumping out of the mount when you travel over rough or bumpy roads. This seems to work quite well and at no time has the turbine become loose in the mount.

TURBINE MOUNTED ON FRONT FORK OF TOURING BIKE

The turbine had a small charge in it before I set off on the trip...but not much...I would guess at about a third. I then cycled to Sixpenny Handley for the first nights camp...and then on the Saturday I cycled on the route I posted about last time to the second nights camp at Coombe Bissett.  The total distance cycled was about sixty miles. So on a proper touring trip this would be about equal to a days cycling. Over the sixty miles the little turbine was spinning it's heart out the whole time. When I cycle back from Gibraltar in September I will be cycling another forty miles a day on top of this...somewhere in the region of one hundred miles plus and it's that trip that I obtained the turbine for.

Anyway back to last weekends test ....how did it perform..? Well on the Saturday night I used it to charge up the Garmin. I had used the Garmin on a training run prior to the weekend trip, so the Garmin battery only had about a quarter charge left. The turbine actually recharged the Garmin FULLY. This is the first time that a charging device has managed to do this. When I have used my solar panel chargers in the past they manage to charge the Garmin but always fail to fully charge - usually managing to get it to about 92%.

So in a nutshell the initial test seems quite positive....However I wouldn't want anyone to rush out and buy one  just yet...The real test will be the ten day touring trip to Brittany in Northern France in about five weeks time. A proper multi day test like that will tell us all we need to know. If it passes that test I will give it the 'purple' seal of approval.......All will be reported here.........