r/WildernessBackpacking • u/BuilderJ316 • 3d ago
What are yalls thoughts on hand crank generators? Viable option for emergency power or useless gimmick?
I like to be prepared on hiking and camping trips with emergency power backup (enough to make a phone call if needed) and was wondering if hand crank generators were a good option. I know I can always carry power banks but should I include this as a small emergency option in case I run out of power on longer trips?
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u/poptartjake 3d ago
Small fold out solar panel would be a much better option for recharging power banks.
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u/Pure-Commercial-9809 3d ago
Useless, If you are truly in a emergency situation that you need power that bad you need your energy even more. If you are that worried carry a backup power bank, Attom Tech makes a super small 3000mah one that would make a good backup.
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u/musubk 2d ago
It's viable if you understand you're not going to get a lot of power out of it. I have an AM/FM/weather radio in my kayak camping and emergency kit, that has a hand crank on it. I've tested it and 1 minute of solid cranking gives me about 10 minutes of radio time. It also has a USB output on it for charging other devices, but you'd have to crank for a while to get a few minutes of phone use. So it's viable as an actual emergency device (just need to send a text with location, or make a ~3 minute call) but it's not viable if your idea of 'emergency' use is 'my battery is dead but I want to watch reels in my tent'. For actual backpacking, it's bulk and weight for something you'll probably never actually need, and would be better covered by something like an inReach (though $$$). I like it for kayak camping, but really just for the radio to listen to in camp.
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u/funundrum 3d ago
Is it viable? Yes. Is it a good idea? This seems to fall squarely under the category of “packing your fears.” See how long your phone will last on airplane mode, turning it off at night. Pretty sure the answer is several days. Now add the backup of a power bank, which will get you at least a couple full charges. This length of time will surely cover however long your trip is.
Adding a second backup should be replaced with better self rescue and navigation knowledge. All the hand cranks in the world aren’t going to help you if your phone gets smashed or washed away.
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u/rando1459 3d ago
I would not trust my phone in an emergency wilderness situation. I prioritized having a Garmin Explorer with a service plan and rescue insurance for my wilderness backpacking trips.
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u/Asleep_Onion 2d ago edited 2d ago
Useless gimmick.
If you're cranking away at a sustainable effort, you're only making about 10-20 watts. You can peak at about 100 watts but that's not sustainable for more than a couple minutes.
To put that into perspective, charging a Tesla once would take you about 5,000 hours of cranking. Basically cranking the hand crank from the time you wake up til the time you go to sleep, every day, for a year, to charge a Tesla one time.
It's fine for a small radio or led flashlight but that's about it.
Many years ago, I looked into inventing an exercise bike that feeds power into your house like a solar system would. The idea seemed great - if you're already using an exercise bike anyways, it would be great to use all that energy you expended to power your house. But the laws of energy just don't pan out for that. While your legs are much more powerful than your arms, and you can output 100-200 watts of energy on an exercise bike for several hours straight, converting that power to electricity results in about a 60% loss due to the inefficiency of the conversion, so you're only really making about 40-80 watts of electricity. Even if you rode the bike for 3 hours a day, you'd only generate about 6kw/h of electricity a month, which is only about $1-2 worth of electricity. It would take several lifetimes of riding the bike to break even on the cost of buying it and hooking it up to your house with an inverter. So needless to say, I abandoned the idea.
The bottom line is that the human body just isn't capable of producing very much useable electricity. Neo and Morpheus will be happy to hear that news.
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u/Jolly-Slow1164 3d ago
Oh, this is wilderness backpacking. I was going to suggest the biolote stove, but it's too heavy to lug around the woods. I take it car camping with the kids. It makes the state parks seem more like the wilderness... And the fuel is free
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u/bloughmiegh 2d ago
I hate to pile on but there’s one perspective missing from these comments.
The energy has to come from somewhere and it would have to be a situation in which your need for electricity was greater than your need for food.
If that’s the case, you can use a battery to offset the low discharge of the crank itself. It would take a while to fill it up but it would be much more viable than trying to operate off the crank itself.
I have a lot of experience doing disaster/SAR work (actually got caught in a major flood disaster in ‘24) and the pluckiest solution I’ve seen is the Biolite stove. Idk which model but it burns sticks and generates electricity from that.
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u/wetrocke 2d ago edited 2d ago
I happened to carry a hand-cranked radio on one trip to listen to news during an election. Each time you cranked it up, you got 3-4 minutes of reception. Replacec with quick succession of cheap battery radios.
. All died. The cranker is still in my closet. But (medium of) radio is dead.
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u/Unicorn187 2d ago
I have one. But not for hiking.
They work, but no way would I use one while hiking. Kinda heavy, and bulky. And they take a lot of energy from you to use. They are very slow to charge. Like mount it to a study table so it's stable and easier to use, plug your phone in, and recite a play. In an hour you'll have gone up a few percentage points, if you maintained a steady cranking motion. It doesnt have to be turned fast,only a couple rotations per second, but that gets to be a lot after ten minutes. And using when its not clamped down is even more tedious.
My purpose was if we have another 2 week or longer power outage in winter when solar panels aren't producing much. So I sit at a table to charge a small lantern.
Have you ever used one of those hand cranked radios? It's almost as bad as those.
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u/Hammock-Hiker-62 2d ago
The only way I'd carry one of those little hand crank generators would be if I thought I could trick somebody else into cranking it for me. I had one long ago. They do work, but the effort versus the reward isn't worth it.
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u/BeccainDenver 2d ago
I was just thinking they might be fun for kids to do when car camping. Kind of the same energy as your comment.
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u/bucky716 1d ago
How do you already survive away from camping without one? What if your power goes out? What it your car battery dies? buy buy buy!
Anyways, it's a gimmick. Congrats, you're entering crazy prepper territory.
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u/Atxflyguy83 Clackamas County SAR 8h ago
Just turn your phone completely off. Turn it if you have an emergency. Problem solved.
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u/putajinthatwjord 3d ago
The power generated is minuscule and they're surprisingly tiring.
Power bank, or solar panel and power bank.