Kit to buy for an Op Tour

**waitout** · 11-12-2009, 11:00

Just one on solar chargers.

"AVOID POWER MONKEY LIKE THE PLAGUE" go one of these and they are pants!!

It took 2 day to charge an iPod Touch and is limited to what bits of kit is can charge!

Ignore the sales crap on their web site clearly they haven't tried it in the sun or in a practical application.

However saying that if anyone wants one I'll give it to them!

A better suggestion is powering off a vehicle, either use the lighter adapters or rig one up yourself and connect to the battery

Day Sacks we went with the mother lode, fitted great over osprey and took bowman well the only draw back to that is that battery changes were a pain as you had to drop the ancils off to get at the battery.

Under Armour webbing, we had our belt kit take off us as we were told you wonâ€™t need it as it can all be mounted on your osprey, again we purchased a load from Home guard and sort of trialled it for them, again I have a couple of sets available for sale if anyone interested.

**Montigny_La_palisse** · 11-12-2009, 11:09

Originally Posted by waitout

Just one on solar chargers.

"AVOID POWER MONKEY LIKE THE PLAGUE" go one of these and they are pants!!

It took 2 day to charge an iPod Touch and is limited to what bits of kit is can charge!

Ignore the sales crap on thier web site clearly they haven't tried it in the sun or in a practical application.

However saying that if anyone wants one I'll give it to them!

A better suggestion is powering off a vehicle, either use the lighter adapters or rig one up yourself and connect battery

One of our lads has got one and it works fine. I reckon yours must be duff.

**waitout** · 11-12-2009, 11:15

And the three others in our group possible but a high duff rate

Actually I'll clarify the position on the charger, it took 2 days to get a complete charge on the power monkey storage device and that was leaving it out in the sun all day.

**HAZE_87** · 11-12-2009, 12:24

The Freeloader is a pretty good piece of kit, used it in the UK just from the standard daylight by the window and worked great with charging the kids Nintendo DS

**young_lofty** · 15-12-2009, 23:27

Originally Posted by cheesypoptart

Originally Posted by mattiep2505

any ideas for day sack ?? just finished cfx and the niday sack is shockingly unconfy

The NI patrol pack is actually one of the better packs. Consider modding it to get rid of reasons for discomfort. For example, this Mystery Cinch can be used to massively improve comfort when wearing any pack, particularly with body armour.

Rather than spending beer tokens on that, just use the one that comes with your issued Camelback. Looks like exactly the same thing to me.

**THEY_STOOD_IN_THE_DOOR** · 15-12-2009, 23:51

Originally Posted by Montigny_La_palisse

Originally Posted by waitout

Just one on solar chargers.

"AVOID POWER MONKEY LIKE THE PLAGUE" go one of these and they are pants!!

It took 2 day to charge an iPod Touch and is limited to what bits of kit is can charge!

Ignore the sales crap on thier web site clearly they haven't tried it in the sun or in a practical application.

However saying that if anyone wants one I'll give it to them!

A better suggestion is powering off a vehicle, either use the lighter adapters or rig one up yourself and connect battery

One of our lads has got one and it works fine. I reckon yours must be duff.

roger that - i swear by mine - great bit of kit - now got two - for extened time on ground!!

**mark1234** · 16-12-2009, 00:01

Originally Posted by THEY_STOOD_IN_THE_DOOR

Originally Posted by Montigny_La_palisse

Originally Posted by waitout

Just one on solar chargers.

"AVOID POWER MONKEY LIKE THE PLAGUE" go one of these and they are pants!!

It took 2 day to charge an iPod Touch and is limited to what bits of kit is can charge!

Ignore the sales crap on thier web site clearly they haven't tried it in the sun or in a practical application.

However saying that if anyone wants one I'll give it to them!

A better suggestion is powering off a vehicle, either use the lighter adapters or rig one up yourself and connect battery

One of our lads has got one and it works fine. I reckon yours must be duff.

roger that - i swear by mine - great bit of kit - now got two - for extened time on ground!!

I'm not sure what model mine was as it was given to me, but it took PRR batteries and would fully charge my iPod touch about 2 and 1/2 times.

**THEY_STOOD_IN_THE_DOOR** · 16-12-2009, 16:06

Originally Posted by mark1234

Originally Posted by THEY_STOOD_IN_THE_DOOR

Originally Posted by Montigny_La_palisse

Originally Posted by waitout

Just one on solar chargers.

"AVOID POWER MONKEY LIKE THE PLAGUE" go one of these and they are pants!!

It took 2 day to charge an iPod Touch and is limited to what bits of kit is can charge!

Ignore the sales crap on thier web site clearly they haven't tried it in the sun or in a practical application.

However saying that if anyone wants one I'll give it to them!

A better suggestion is powering off a vehicle, either use the lighter adapters or rig one up yourself and connect battery

One of our lads has got one and it works fine. I reckon yours must be duff.

roger that - i swear by mine - great bit of kit - now got two - for extened time on ground!!

I'm not sure what model mine was as it was given to me, but it took PRR batteries and would fully charge my iPod touch about 2 and 1/2 times.

ive seen chargers like that BUT not powermonkeys - they charge from the mainms mate.

**Timpatient** · 04-03-2010, 00:10

I saw in a previous comment someone recommended getting a down sleeping bag for a winter tour. Anyone got experience of this - is it easy to keep the bag dry, does the down degrade over the 6 months, and is it generally a good idea?

**thecoops** · 04-03-2010, 18:02

Originally Posted by waitout

Just one on solar chargers.

"AVOID POWER MONKEY LIKE THE PLAGUE" go one of these and they are pants!!

It took 2 day to charge an iPod Touch and is limited to what bits of kit is can charge!

Ignore the sales crap on their web site clearly they haven't tried it in the sun or in a practical application.

However saying that if anyone wants one I'll give it to them!

A better suggestion is powering off a vehicle, either use the lighter adapters or rig one up yourself and connect to the battery

Day Sacks we went with the mother lode, fitted great over osprey and took bowman well the only draw back to that is that battery changes were a pain as you had to drop the ancils off to get at the battery.

Under Armour webbing, we had our belt kit take off us as we were told you wonâ€™t need it as it can all be mounted on your osprey, again we purchased a load from Home guard and sort of trialled it for them, again I have a couple of sets available for sale if anyone interested.

I find it a bit crap with my iPod touch but its good wth nano's and classic's ipods and works well on my mobile

**waitout** · 04-03-2010, 18:13

The power monkeys in our platoon where left out for a day would then show a full charge on the battery, as soon as you plugged it into a device the charge state dropped to half charged, I'm sorry after using one I have no confidence in the solar charging part of this product. 4 power monkeys in total did the same thing.

The other thing is it wouldn't charge my camera! so not useful for that either.

I very simply got a 12/24 volt car adapter and a lighter socket and made a charger by attaching it to the vehicle battery. I later found that the PSU in the vehicle came with a lighter socket both for 24V and 12V, but these had been put back into the stores for safekeeping

**TheWiseMushroom** · 26-03-2010, 16:00

do i need gloves when deployed? do they need to be slashproof and what do people recommend?

**thecoops** · 26-03-2010, 16:19

Originally Posted by TheWiseMushroom

do i need gloves when deployed? do they need to be slashproof and what do people recommend?

you will get issued a pair. gloves are like boots you could have a whole thread dedicated to them

**CC_TA** · 26-03-2010, 20:44

Originally Posted by TheWiseMushroom

do i need gloves when deployed? do they need to be slashproof and what do people recommend?

Off to the pit you'll get issued a pair of desert DPM Gloves Leather Self Abuse. Good bit of kit. You may also get a winter issue of gloves inner and outer depending where you're off to and what you're doing.

**tearsbeforebedtime** · 26-03-2010, 21:13

I bought a pair of these.

http://www.rstacticalgear.com/pd_hat...cal_gloves.cfm

Not from that website or for that price. They disintegrated after about 2.5 months of summer patroling due to being constantly soaked with sweat.

The issue ones lasted the rest of the tour and were free.

Go figure.