For solar chargers, there are also nifty little ones that are fairly cheap.
Awhile ago, I picked up a small solar panel that has numerous phone charging adapters, plus USB plugs for recharging other portable devices that can charge via USB, for about 30€. This panel is about the size of a small smartphone.
I also found a larger, fold-in-half suitcase type of solar panel (about 30 x 40cm, or 12 x 16" when closed) that has alligator clamps and outputs about 2A at 12V in direct sunlight. This could be useful to slow-charge a dead car battery and that sort of thing. This one was 80€.
I found these at conrad.fr, but there are certainly similar sites in other countries that sell not only electronics, but components, tools, and various other parts and contraptions that you won't find anywhere else.
Also, I watched a bunch of this guy's vids the other night after watching the "make fire with water" one:
_http://thekingofrandom.com/
I especially liked this vid:
And this one:
What struck me rather forcefully was the simplicity of his ingenuity. In tough times, there are a lot of things you can do yourself if you have some know-how and a lot of curiosity.
In the case of the check valve, that's a handy little device that can be used to make a handpump for water, fuel, etc.
In the case of the arc welder: Despite the fact that I'm an electrical engineer, it never occurred to me that I could make a welder very simply in the way he describes. Of course, "real" arc welders are DC (not AC), they have current limiting and so on, and there are very good reasons for all that. But in a pinch, his method certainly works. If you watch the 2nd arc welding video, you see how he improves the design by simply adding a second transformer from another microwave, and he changes the transformer winding ratio. The really funny thing was that in the first video, I knew his secondary winding (the thick black wire) would burn, because that wire isn't thick enough to support the max current (among other problems). That's when I thought, "Hang on a minute, I know more than this guy, and yet he was the one with the bright idea! I never would have thought of that..."
So, I would say it's not only about being prepared in terms of having some food and other supplies in case of emergencies, and it's not only about having useful knowledge and skills in terms of building, fixing, learning a trade, etc... It's also about "unlearning" or re-thinking how things are possible when you already have some useful skills. In hard times, if you can't think outside the box, all your fabulous skills will be 10 times less useful.
Awhile ago, I picked up a small solar panel that has numerous phone charging adapters, plus USB plugs for recharging other portable devices that can charge via USB, for about 30€. This panel is about the size of a small smartphone.
I also found a larger, fold-in-half suitcase type of solar panel (about 30 x 40cm, or 12 x 16" when closed) that has alligator clamps and outputs about 2A at 12V in direct sunlight. This could be useful to slow-charge a dead car battery and that sort of thing. This one was 80€.
I found these at conrad.fr, but there are certainly similar sites in other countries that sell not only electronics, but components, tools, and various other parts and contraptions that you won't find anywhere else.
Also, I watched a bunch of this guy's vids the other night after watching the "make fire with water" one:
_http://thekingofrandom.com/
I especially liked this vid:
And this one:
What struck me rather forcefully was the simplicity of his ingenuity. In tough times, there are a lot of things you can do yourself if you have some know-how and a lot of curiosity.
In the case of the check valve, that's a handy little device that can be used to make a handpump for water, fuel, etc.
In the case of the arc welder: Despite the fact that I'm an electrical engineer, it never occurred to me that I could make a welder very simply in the way he describes. Of course, "real" arc welders are DC (not AC), they have current limiting and so on, and there are very good reasons for all that. But in a pinch, his method certainly works. If you watch the 2nd arc welding video, you see how he improves the design by simply adding a second transformer from another microwave, and he changes the transformer winding ratio. The really funny thing was that in the first video, I knew his secondary winding (the thick black wire) would burn, because that wire isn't thick enough to support the max current (among other problems). That's when I thought, "Hang on a minute, I know more than this guy, and yet he was the one with the bright idea! I never would have thought of that..."
So, I would say it's not only about being prepared in terms of having some food and other supplies in case of emergencies, and it's not only about having useful knowledge and skills in terms of building, fixing, learning a trade, etc... It's also about "unlearning" or re-thinking how things are possible when you already have some useful skills. In hard times, if you can't think outside the box, all your fabulous skills will be 10 times less useful.
