I have been successfully using the jawetec bikecharger in combination with several devices for several trips at my bicycle, and I really like it. Today I received the information Jawetec’s web page is no longer available. Currently I have no clue whether their bike charger is still available somewhere. Since this great little gadget has been mentioned many times within this blog, please be aware that any links to the Jawetec page from this blog have become obsolete. I do not know, what happened to the company. In my opinion the Jawetec charger is one of the most useful accessories with bicycles and dynohubs, and I very much regret if production is stopped. There are similar products out there, but those are more expensive than the lightweighted, sophisticated, reliable and small Jawetec bike charger.

By the way, in spite of the fact that this blog has not seen updates for quite a long time, the Big Dummy is in happy use. 2009 milage compares to 2008′s. Snafu Knob Job tires, however, show far better durability than the Fat Franks used before. Apart from that, the Token bottom bracket again shows up some outer slackness, so I will probably use ordinary Shimano square tapered or whatever in the future.

Bicycle Holder Installation

Within the last weeks I have been gathering some practice with my new Garmin GPS, an Oregon 400t model. It was attached to my MTB, the Big Dummy, a motorcycle and a scooter. Finally I installed two bicycle holders, one at the Big Dummy and one at the scooter. I will need to buy at least two more of them. The Garmin bicycle holder for Oregon and Colorado models is simple and cheap, but it is not ready for hard bumps and impacts, probably dropping the device incidentially. Thus I had to feed in some layers of soft rubber tubing to prevent heavy shattering of device. While this was possible in an easy and efficient way at the scooter due to its thin handle bar stay providing space for a thick rubber layer, at the Big Dummy I had to keep my anti vibration layer quite thin due to thick 31.8mm handlebar. See images to compare both mounts. Nevertheless, I am hoping there is enough rubber to make it absorb hard shaking and keep device in place.
There are several GPS mounting systems available as like Bikertech customized, Ram Mounts, Touratech and probably lots more, most of them fairly well addressing the oscillation issue, but in my opinion they are way too big and heavy for my small vehicles, also quite expensive.

Power Source

Lengthy trips require some thoughts about GPS power supply. Batteries may be sufficient for one or at most two days of continuous use. Some battery charger will be needed most likely, since the Garmin would never recharge its batteries inside when plugged to some USB power supply.
Trying to avoid another battery charger in my baggage, I connected the Garmin to my hub dynamo via the JaweTec Bikecharger mentioned previously here. Basically this works, but it is far from being a perfect solution:

• With the SON 28 dynamo a continuous speed of at least 10km/h is required to provide enough power for the device. As soon as riding slower the GPS will start beeping and switch to battery if possible or just shut down.
• The charger is not recognized as a simple power supply. By default the GPS goes to mass storage mode when the charger is switched on. To prevent this, the devices USB interface needs to be set to Garmin Spanner mode, which means, for every short power outage one needs to confirm switching to GPS mode instead of mass storage mode at some popup window coming up with a nasty beep, again and again. Thats sort of cumbersome.

For the motorcycles there is no problem about power supply since it can simply be wired and plugged to the battery via some modified USB converter taken from my previous navigation device. Thus I can run it without any battery inside which is strongly recommended with offroad usage. For the Big Dummy I am still in search for a better solution. I may probably connect a special battery charger to the JaweTec charger and keep a pair of fresh batteries there, but actually I do not really like this, since it requires taking along too many small devices and batteries. I may probably just get a small and lightweighted charger and recharge batteries every night, leaving the JaweTec charger at home.
Another feasible solution would be the dynohub driven Zzing USB charger providing internal battery buffering (unlike the JaWeTec charger) for devices not being capable of USB charging. This way the Oregon GPS could be used totally without its batteries (keeping it lightweighted with better protection against bumps and vibration). However, the Zzing charger is quite big.
As to some readers comment the Australian company Pedalpower+ provides DC hub generators and several more interesting mobile power supplies for bicycle usage.
I finally decided to stick with my reliable JaWeTec charger and put some USB chargeable power buffer, called PowerTank by SwissBatteries in between the charger and the Garmin Oregon. I will give it a try and report about it.

After quite a long period of evaluating GPS web pages and newsgroups, searching for test reports, user experiences and talking to people, I got totally submerged by chaotic information overkill. Finally I decided to replace my Medion automotive GPS navigation device with a real outdoor GPS, the Garmin Oregon 400t (European model with 1:100000 topografical map covering most regions of Europe). This device will be mounted at the Big Dummy mostly, but will also be used for hiking and motorcycling. Currently I cannot tell, whether it will be possible to run it with my unbuffered dynamo powered USB charger since the Garmin device will not use and recharge its batteries when being plugged to an external power source. So, when riding slowly, the Garmin may simply shut down. I will find out more about it.

Today the installation of Medion MD96050 (PNA465) navigation device was finished and tested. The Medion PNA is connected to the JaWeTec USB charger (see previous post) and powered through the dynamo hub (6V/3W). It works well. Charging starts at riding speed of 7 km/h. When lights are switched on additionally, it starts charging at 12 km/h. USB charger can be switched off easily. The PNA together with the USB charger can quickly be removed by unplugging power supply cable.

When testing the whole arrangement rolling up and down our street an hour ago, a bicycle traveller with lots of baggage and a bob trailer came along and we started talking about bicycles. He turned out to be the owner of the well known bakfiets cargobike distributor Beer Transport Fietsen in Den Haag. Due to my previous web research concerning big dummy related stuff I knew the shop. It was very nice to meet you and your family here. Have a good trip and lots of sunny rides!

Using some pocket navigation or GPS device for big dummy touring may seem a good idea. For those, using dynamo hubs, JaWeTec in Germany provides some interesting solution for charging USB devices as like PNAs, music players and whatever. A similar device is available at Stollberg Elektrotechnik in Germany. For real outdoor freaks, there even is some 12V solar charging device available (Switzerland), and there is another German supplier with lots of useful navigation equipment and accessories for bicycling usage.

Late addendum: Zzing provide some USB dynohub charger with internal batterie buffering. It works similar to the Jawetec charger but will keep up delivering power even when cycle stops or goes uphill slowly.
Another very flexible solution could be a combination of a small unbuffered dynohub-USB charger (see above) with the SwissBatteries PowerTank which is some sort of mobile power buffer rechargeable in several ways and providing USB out.
Also I would like to mention Pedalpower+, an Australian supplier with several very interesting dynohub solutions, even providing DC hub generators.
And here is another one I recently found: Busch & Müller E-Werk is a brand new universal dynohub charger, apparently without an internal battery buffering, similar to the Jawetec charger.