RV With Your iPod--and Skip the Tangled Charge Cord

In these days of personal muzak, it seems everybody--and perhaps an incredible number of their dogs--is sporting an iPod, or an iPhone. Like a lot of personal electronic devices, the iFamily does have a bit of a drawback: They need frequent charging. In your RV on the road, the handiest way to get juice into your iPod is via a 12-volt "accessory socket." We used to call it a cigarette lighter sockets, but I guess we're more enlightened now, if you'll pardon the pun.

The problem is the wire that runs from the iPod to the accessory socket. Like most charge cords, they just seemed factory designed to get tangled up--particularly when not in use. You can stick it away in the glove box, and sure enough, when you go to fish out a stick of chewing gum, or the traffic cop is waiting for you to produce your registration, that blessed cord is all wrapped up around everything, preventing the release of that important item you seek.

Enter reCOIL, the handy dandy iPod charger that plugs into your ciggy socket--and when not charging your iPod or iPhone--the charge cord conveniently retracts into the charger. No more tangles. Certified "Made for iPod" and "Works with iPhone" the new charge genius has a suggested retail price of $29.99. Check our the manufacturer's website at www.scosche.com.

Solar Pulse Keeps Your Occasional Car Ready to Go

We keep a "round town car" at one end of our frequently traveled trail, and it may go months without use. Last time we needed the beasty, a turn of the ignition key brought a grunt--the battery was on sabbatical from lack of charge.

We've found the answer to that issue: Pulse Tech Products' Solar Pulse. It's a handy little solar powered system that not only keeps your standby vehicle battery charged, it also keeps it in shape with a system that keeps the battery plates cleaned up, knocking down the buildup of lead sulfate that can kill off an otherwise good battery.

We're using the 5 watt version; it's but about 9" square and a 1/4" thick, small but powerful for the application. Since we keep our car under a fabric cover, the question of where to mount the solar panel came up. We picked up a small wood pallet and mounted the solar panel to the pallet, aiming the solar panel south for maximum solar availability. The next question that arises: What do you do with the solar panel and the pallet when you want to drive? The system has a quick disconnect we hid behind the car grill. We simply unplug the panel from the car, and off we go.

Installation is straight forward and most any "handy with a wrench and screwdriver" person can do the install. A control module lives permanently under the car hood, and the whole install process took us only about 20 minutes.

Now when we leave the car alone for a few weeks or months, we don't worry about having to disconnect the battery for fear "parasitic" loads will slowly chew through our stored up power. Besides, disconnecting the battery is to shut off the juice to the onboard engine diagnostics computer--and any critical information stored therein could be lost with the disconnect of power over a long term.

Check out Solar Pulse on the pulsetech.net website.

Smart Charger for a Smart Price

Spend big money on those deep cycle batteries for your coach? Word to the wise: Maintain 'em or replace 'em. Making sure your batteries are kept charged is a key ingredient to battery longevity. "Smart" battery chargers don't just run juice into your battery--the charge in stages. The bulk charge stage pushes current into your battery at a constant level until a slightly elevated lvoltage level is reached. This allows for faster charging. Then the charger switches to an absorbtion cycle--there the charger swtiches to keep the battery voltage steady allowing the battery to fully charge. Once the fully charged point is reached, the charger switches into float stage--the battery is kept at about 13 volts, keeping the battery fully charged.

Now imagine a smart 3-stage charger with one more added feature: Pulse charging, which is said to reduce lead sulfate crystalization. Lead sulfate crystals can build up in a battery, eventually destroying it. Pulse charging breaks up the lead sulfate, causing it to go back into the battery's electrolyte solution.

Enter the Xtreme Charge battery charger. A three-stage smart charger with pulse charging technology. Designed for 12 volt systems, Extreme works with ordinary "flooded" lead-acid batteries, as well as with gell cell, and AGM batteries. Hook it up, plug it in, and forget about it. Or fuss over it and take advantage of the 12 led status indicator lights that provide information on what the charger is doing, how the battery is doing, and the current battery state of charge.

Mind you, this is not a behemoth charger--the maximum output current is but 2.5 amps, so it could take a while to recharge your batteries, depending on the capacity of the batteries and how deeply they're discharged. Nevertheless, for a small system, or for use charging up and maintaining batteries on the ATV, this may be just the ticket. Xtreme has a suggested list price of $99.95. Get more information by visiting the Xtreme Charger website.