The Innawoods Information Project

[Captain Maltese]

I was sitting in a tent after sunset with several hours to kill before bedtime, when I first realized there was a hole in my electronic information park. Bringing the laptop on a hike wasn't even an option, being heavy as fuck and hogging power like a predecessor fornicator. I did indeed bring my cell phone but with an overall screen size of 6 inches and me needing glasses close to the strength of the Hubble Telescope there wasn't much I could do. Play music maybe and perhaps watch porn but I wanted to do other things. Like read or write or learn something. In retrospect I should probably have brought a book.

With no option but to think, I spent the evening trying to define what I really wanted that my cell phone couldn't. Like... everything? Then the thoughts strayed into what I could have that could last a longer trip into the mountains, followed by the logical question of what I could have that wouldn't be running on a time limit. At all. Hey, I have time to spare and the Apocalypse could happen any day now. Also I'm a computer engineer and this is my kind of challenge.

I knew I was looking for something capable of:
- being resupplied with power other than the plug in the wall
- being a reading platform for larger things than 50 characters at the time. Much larger.
- being a writing platform, with writing speed exceeding one character per ten seconds. I'm slow, poor sighted and ham fisted and I know it.
- being a viewer for diagrams and other technical images.
- being of a weight acceptable on top of a full and heavy backpack
- have full internet connectivity: broadband, wifi, Bluetooth, anything but semaphore
- on a lower priority, show movies and pictures and play music.
- have built-in standard radio, and also have a way to connect with my hand radios for programming
- be easy to connect to any Windows-running laptop
- have a commercial shelfware operating system
- be easy to replace and yet retain and move data in case the box fries out
- be fairly inexpensive

With readability at a top priority I ditched the idea of getting a bigger cellphone immediately. I can barely pocket the one I have. This left me with basically three options.
- the first option was getting a small laptop. I already have a laptop; its screen is about 15 inches and the weight is slightly lower than a Volkswagen Beetle. There are smaller ones available and I can get one off the shelf as small as 10 inches; it would cost twice what I paid for my current one though. The main problem, as far as I could see at the time, is that even these mini versions require wall power. 220V in the case of my country. That doesn't work so good in the Apocalypse or innawoods when power is carried on your back.
- the second option, which I considered for a while, was a Raspberry. Raspberries are basically a computer card the size of a deck of cards, on which are the absolute minimum of parts to run an operative system. Once you plug in a screen, a memory bank, a power source, a data storage unit, a keyboard and a box to house it all you are capable of doing weird and wonderful things. It is an admirable construction project and I am tempted to take that voyage, but it wasn't the challenge I was looking for this time. Maybe later. And home built projects don't always result in a rugged project. Not when soldiering irons are involved.
- the third option was a tablet. They are certainly shelfware now, they are half the price of even the cheapest new laptop, and more importantly they are less greedy on power than laptops. This was the option I ended up choosing.

Continuing in next post.

[Captain Maltese]

Once I had chosen the tablet concept some other choices were taken with it since there weren't options.

- tablets, the current generation anyway, runs on standard 5 volt USB charging power. That is important. More on that later.
- doing internal rewiring is pretty much a nono. Not just because you blow the warranty but because everything inside is basically a block of electronics. I can find my way around the innards of a laptop or PC or server, but the day I open a tablet it'll be while accepting that I'll probably be ruining it. And there certainly won't be much hope of sourcing compatible parts for less than the price of a new tablet.

I could choose size. Tablets come in alternatives from 6 to 13 inch screens and my eyes demanded the biggest I could afford - while my back wanted something smaller than a laptop. Price was a key issue in this but I eventually settled on about 10 inches.

I could choose operating system. No less than five alternatives; Android, Linux, Windows, iOS and iPadOS. I wasn't looking for a coding platform so Linux was out, and I avoid anything starting with a small i. Windows would have been perfect but ahaha the only one I found at the time cost almost 3000 dollars. Oh well, I like Android anyway.

Some of the technical items were important to me, others not. Speed and running memory wasn't; I don't need to run more than one main application at a time and I'm not a gamer - although given the choice, I always want max omph for the given bucks because next years' software versions are always bigger. I also didn't particularly care about brand, or camera. What was important to me was memory, so I could store as much information as possible - the primary objective of this project. My tablet had to have max internal storage space, shared between the internal chip memory and a SIM chip. Another priority: Many tablets these days have multiple communication options; broadband, wireless, the works. The cheaper ones don't. For my project maximum connection was the only acceptable option.

I ended up buying a Huawei Matepad T 10. For about a couple of hundred US dollars; with currency variation and market availability etc that's about as close as it matters. A USB charger and wall power plug was included. I also bought an external keyboard with a folder to fit the tablet into, a tablet 'pen', and eventually a random shoulder bag just big enough to fit the tablet and a few extras . My specific tablet version came with the following key spec (you'll find full spec in the link):
Weight minus additions: 450 grams
Screen: 9.7 inches
OS: Android 10 (an a vendor specific non-access to Google Play)
Storage: 32 GB internal memory chip plus an optional up to 512 GB SIM chip. That's about five times as much storage room as my laptop has without extensions, although significantly slower.
Communication: broadband, wifi, and Bluetooth. In addition there is a Type-C plug hole and a headphone plug hole.

Basically this is a run-of-the-mill, midlevel quality, utter shelfware platform.

To be continued. Next time, alternate power charging options.

[Captain Maltese]

As stated earlier most if not all tablets - and cell phones - run their power through a USB interface. At home, that is delivered through an adapter connected to the main grid of 220 or 110 volt, depending on where in the world you are. (In case you wonder, I am steering away from amperes and hertz and watts for the moment.) What matters is that the power reaching the tablet has been reduced to 5 volts; the USB cable source takes care of that.

So since we are leaving home and hotels and offices and everything else with mains electricity access, what are our options?
Basically:
- cars
- big battery wirearounds
- liquid fuel generators
- solar rigs
- power banks with usb plugs
- small battery wirearounds
- solid fuel generators
- other

Portable wind mills, portable water mills and a few other means of generating power in the wild exist but it would be more fair to call these transportable for construction. You can't just put one of these things in your backpack. Everything else is relevant enough that we'll look at them.

We start off with the car. Obviously you can't put it in your backpack. Ahaha. But you tend to move by car and cars tend to be available everywhere roads can lead them. Most of them run on 12 volt batteries; trucks and some big cars may have 24 volt delivered by two 12 volt batteries or a single 24 volt. They are Big. Old cars, which is all I ever drive, have only one consumer-ready power outlet and it is always 12 volt: the cigarette lighter plug. This was a a place to plug in minifridges, minitvs, shaving machines, all the joys of the road. Far newer is the USB plugin, which is a converter plug to Type C USB but also reduces the output power to 5 volt so your gadget don't go up in flames. I am told that new cars and also new car radios have USB plugs installed from the factory. I'll assume it isn't a myth. And all you need to access this power source is a car that is running, which also means you have the key and fuel in the car.

Now let's say you don't have keys or fuel or a running car. You may have been in a crash and is now far from people with a busted car and an empty tablet and phone. Or it could be the Apocalypse. As long as you have a car battery at hand with some juice left in it, all is not yet lost. Maybe you are in someone's cabin which has a fridge running on a car or 'leisure' battery. It will most likely be 12 volt, which you can't use as it is. If you have prepared for rough days because the Rapture is in full swing, you might have a USB adapter for connecting directly to 12 volt batteries. These things weigh about 10 grams, I have one, tand hey cost less than a fancy cup of coffee. I also have a car cigarette lighter USB adapter and they cost even less - I always have one in my car and one with my tablet. If the car is already a wreck or if your life depends on it, and you have tools and some technical savvy, you can in theory dismantle the entire lighter socket and connect it directly to the battery which means you bypass the car key and unfortunately also all the fuses - not a job for a weak heart. You'll still need that usb adapter to plug in though to get down to 5 volt. Here at home I have a small 12 volt battery for testing various stuff and I can confirm that as long as you have 12 volt accessible and USB adapters, you can get loaded.

The next step down on the ladder is a liquid fuel electricity generator, which is easier to carry than a car but you don't want to. Many of you guys who have a little too much experience with hurricanes, earth quakes or wild fires will have experience with them. These things basically run on unleaded gas or diesel (there may be further options) and deliver 110 or 220 volt to keep a few of your bigger gadgets running. There are two issues that are relevant for your tablet. One is that only some models come with 12 volt or 5 volt USB outlets, and they are not the cheaper ones. The second is that not all generators handle delicate electronics with equal care even if your plugs fit. If you have the chance and time, get any charging banks you have loaded up and charge your tablet from that.

Finally down at the kind of equipment you can actually carrying along with you. Solar charging is first out. Disregarding permanent installation for the purpose of this document, and also disregarding the several types of technology available, we have two categories to choose from: compact systems and component systems.
- a compact system combines a solar panel, a power regulator and a power bank into a package you put in a pocket and can plug the USB cable from your tablet etc. These systems typically have small solar panels and charge slowly but are very consumer friendly.
- a component system can be a foldable solar panel with a very basic regulator and a USB plug built in. There is no power bank. These simple systems can be up to maybe six-eight times as large as the compact one when folded out and generates power faster. They are still so portable that they can be strapped to your backpack as you walk. But the sun moves on the sky and you move too and the voltage delivered varies; the regulator can protect from too much power but not from too little. This is not good for delicate electronics like tablets. You get around this by instead plugging in a power bank, which you plugs to your tablet later.
But either way it is still a SOLAR solution. If you live in Norway or another place where the daily strong sunlight is not granted, especially during the winter, it is a fickle thing to depend on. With good planning it is the obvious choice for an expedition but the panel will be mounted and in use all day.

The standard power bank is an ideal companion to a tablet on the field but it doesn't generate any power in itself. They are normally based on lithium and can hold a charge for a good while, but they are at best a temporary solution. The good news is that you can carry them in numbers for safety's sake, and that they will also work on your cell phone.

One less known power bank option are basic 18650 batteries. You may have a few around your house for your high-powered flashlights or similar. These puppies run at 3.7 volt. Which isn't enough for your tablet. But with the right cable you can plug them into a power bank to load either the battery or the bank, and you can charge the tablet from there. These little cables also cost less than a cup of coffee and they are tiny in size. In fact some power banks are simply a box with a stack of 18650 batteries, a voltage converter and a plug. In itself it might not make a big difference but if you are already carrying 18650 batteries for your radio or camera or other devices, why not make it possible to use them in a pinch?

"Solid fuel generators" may sound like a fancy term for a steam engine and not make much sense for a backpack, but there actually such a thing on the market now. The company BioLite has made a remarkable camping stove which runs on normal wood chips - and while it burns, it also charges a battery bank. Sounds like a Muppet Laboratory product but I swear it is true and selling like hot cakes. Is it a winner? Well, the steampunk factor is there. It does work and unlike solar systems you can use it at night. But charging takes a long time and it means you must keep the fire running for several hours. I think it's still early days for this technology and that more effective systems might come, but a lot of things we are surrounded by today was steampunk or science fiction a few decades ago. Let's see where this is going. I expect to buy one of these eventually in some variant.

Among the more obscure options are crank chargers. Don't laugh. You may already have seen then on the popular emergency radios every sports store sells; a combination of flashlight, FM/AM radio, power bank, USB outlet solar panel, charging crank, and life vest. I jest about the vest. Cranks are about as old as electricity as technology and the fact is, they work. But not comfortably so. To charge a cell phone with even one bar you'll be cranking until your arm screams, which IS acceptable if you want to call for help before the wild fire gets there. Cranking for 20 minutes so you can be on Elliquiy for 2 minutes is a bit unfair, especially for your arm muscles. In addition to the emergency radio cranker you can also buy little crankers the size of a pack of cigarettes who are also very uncomfortable, and rather bigger 12 volt chargers with longer crank arms - but the car battery also needs a lot more cranking.

Okay, I think we have gone through the options. I have a number of these items at hand but of that selection, the gear that makes most sense is the solar panel and power bank combination. I have one compact system which has served my cell phone well for years, and one foldable panel yet to be tested in the field. They can be combined, which is great.

Enough hardware. In next post, let's look at what the tablet system can actually do. And what it can't.