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Im disappointed in myself that I did not think of this before. Adapter to use your power tool batteries for emergency phone charging. getting ready for hurricane season here

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Would portable solar panels have more potentials?
The outages here are usually during the big storms rendering our solar panels not terribly useful. The cellular towers have 48 hour batteries so we can still get internet on our phones but need some battery backup for those 8-10 hour outages. I have a generator backing up the panels as well. But hate to start the generator up just for a phone

Plus I have like 6 of these batteries sitting around and never considered if they could be used for emergencies. duh. Nice easy solution for us
 
I have a couple different power banks, but for some reason this thread has me wanting one of the adapters! :D
 
Have a Ryobi led area light with a USB plug. Nifty. $30.

I think they have other Ryobi stuff with USB outlets, but that was the simplest & least expensive when I got it for us.

Fans that use the battery packs are handy as well.
 
I bought one for my Makita set. Actually charging my phone with it now. Super fast charging and I think it will be a handy tool to have around.
 
My backup batteries:

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A lot more capacity and they recharge without external power.

I can also recharge off my laptops.

I only have one battery powered electric drill and it is probably from Harbor Freight so there probably isn't a USB adapter.
 
The "tech" with batteries just keeps getting better fast. I have an electric chain saw (corded) that I have had for years. Made by same Co that I also have one of those strait shaft line trimmers that takes attachments to do edging and a blade to cut brush. Damn things work amazingly well. Coworker said he recently got to try both that ran on batteries and they worked amazingly well. As of yet the batteries for these are a little pricey but we know how that works. When they start putting a USB outlet on those they would make quite the emergency battery. Last laptop I bought for work is a large version of the Chromebook and it will charge off those Type C cords that cell phones use now. One of these would probably run that damn thing for a week. I have long loved cordless tools for around the house. Next one I buy I will of course be looking for one that takes a battery with an outlet to be used in a pinch since the tools here anyway.
 
My current cell phone doesn't have a backup, but for my last cell phone I got a backup battery with rubber armor. When the cell phone battery ran down I would flip a switch and the backup would completely charge the battery while still running the phone.

Had a power outage about 2 weeks ago due to a car taking out a power pole down the mountain. Noticed the car wreck on my way home but it didn't register until I got home and found the power gone. I had used my phone at work that day so it was half discharged. Should have charged it at work or on my way home. Charged it using my laptop since my internet was down (I should get a UPS for my WiFi and the internet - the latter is long distance WiFi).

A decent UPS should be adequate for household backup.
 
My current cell phone doesn't have a backup, but for my last cell phone I got a backup battery with rubber armor. When the cell phone battery ran down I would flip a switch and the backup would completely charge the battery while still running the phone.

Had a power outage about 2 weeks ago due to a car taking out a power pole down the mountain. Noticed the car wreck on my way home but it didn't register until I got home and found the power gone. I had used my phone at work that day so it was half discharged. Should have charged it at work or on my way home. Charged it using my laptop since my internet was down (I should get a UPS for my WiFi and the internet - the latter is long distance WiFi).

A decent UPS should be adequate for household backup.

I have a UPS for our camera system. Will keep it going while I get the generator going. Last time the power went out here it was middle of the night and it went black here. While I was getting cords hooked up it was nice to be able to glance at that monitor and see all sides of the place by the IR camera's since it was pitch black out there. Like so many things these have also come way down in price over the years now.
 
Every house on my private road has a genset for backup.

The $1.5M house at the end of the road has an automatic backup system that kicks in when the power goes down with the battery providing power until the genset can pickup the load.

When I retire, I plan to move and build a house. It will have solar with batteries and those will provide backup should line power go down. Right now it isn't really practical for me to add solar to my current property - too many trees.

Most of our outages are either from wind or ice/snow knocking down trees and/or limbs. Occasionally we have a car wreck take out a power pole. During widespread outages we are usually last to get the power restored as we are a small number of customers and out in the boonies.
 

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