➡ Richie, the host of Jailbreak Overlander, shares his experiences and tips on generating and storing power while off-grid. He emphasizes the usefulness of solar panels, but notes their limitation in the absence of sunlight. He then introduces various energy storage devices, such as those from Goal Zero and Zero Lemon, which can store power generated from solar or other sources. Richie also discusses alternative power sources like hand-cranked dynamos, which can generate power regardless of weather conditions.
➡ The text discusses various devices that can generate electricity manually, such as hand-cranked or pedal-powered generators. These devices, like the ones made by Vivore and KTOR, can charge various electronic devices and even vehicle batteries. The author also mentions DIY options for creating your own generator, and emphasizes the importance of having such devices in case of power outages or emergencies.
➡ This text discusses a portable, affordable device that converts direct current to alternating current, available on Amazon or the manufacturer’s website. The device is highly recommended for its portability and usefulness, especially when there’s no electricity or sunlight for solar panels. It can be a lifesaver, providing stored energy for various needs, including charging laptops. The author also mentions a giveaway of emergency kits filled with survival and first aid items.

Welcome back to another episode of Jailbreak Overlander. I’m Richie and this is Jailbreak. And over the years I’ve brought you on adventures with me where I am in very remote locations and I am utterly alone. I do this all the time. If I run into an obstacle, I need to deal with it one way or the other, no matter where I’m at. But I’ve done a lot of research over the years to figure out how to handle situations like this. And I’ve tried to make videos sharing this information with you guys, whether it’s an escape and evade bag, whether it’s a medical kit, a bug out bag, or just things that you need to keep in your vehicle if you’re going to attempt to go off grid, off Road, Overland, etc.

Well, one of my favorite things is solar because what’s better than getting electricity simply by laying a panel outside and gathering it in some sort of a power pack? I love this stuff. It’s beautiful and I have a lot of solar. The only problem is, in this day and age, and especially where I’m from, solar only works if you’ve got sun. So in this particular video, I’m going to show you how to make power, whether you’ve got power, whether you’ve got solar or not. So you’re going to want to sit back, you’re going to want to relax, and you’re going to want to check this out.

Sa. Hey, what’s up, guys? Welcome back to another episode of Jailbreak Overlander. I’m Richie and this is Jailbreak. And today, once again, we’re in my kitchen and you’re looking at a whole bunch of different electronic devices that I’ve used over the years. And specifically solar panels. I love solar panels. I have a lot of things that run on batteries. So over the years, and I’m Talking the last 12, probably last 12 years, I’ve tried every type of solar panel possibly made and I basically settled on Off Grid Trek because Renee makes these things for the military to military specifications.

And these things work amazingly. I’ve got this 24 watt unit. I’ve also got a 200 watt solar blanket in my truck you’ve probably seen before. And like I said, I’ve had every type of solar panel there is. That’s a renergy. That’s a renergy 100 watt folding glass solar panel. And then this is a 200 watt Merlin Solar panel. This is big money. And solar is amazing because I make videos. I live out of my 97 Land Cruiser. I Have laptops, batteries, flashlights, cameras, refrigerators, all sorts of things I need to keep charged. And solar is the way to go.

But solar doesn’t work when there’s no sun. For instance, I live in New England. I got off the road November 7th, and I’ve probably seen the sun. Today is December 11th. I’ve probably seen the sun maybe twice. We have solar lights going around my house, and they don’t come on at night because there’s no sun to charge them. So solar panels are amazing. They’re great. If there’s no power, the power goes out, you’ve got solar. But if you don’t have any sun, what do you do? Okay, so here we go. There’s a ton of different ways to store energy once you get it from the sun or whatever method you’re using.

Goal 0 has been around forever, and they make a variety of different types of energy storage devices. You fill this with electricity, you save it for a rainy day. They make them so that you can literally just set your cell phone on top of it and it’ll charge. It comes with Thunderbolt charge outlets as well as USB chargers. They’ve even got versions like this one right here that has your standard usb. It has your standard Thunderbolt, but then it’s also got an actual wall plug built into it. Now, this doesn’t last all that long. This will give you a decent charge on your laptop or some other device.

It’ll charge your cell phone several times. Blah, blah, blah, good to go. Now one that I’m incredibly fond of, and I don’t even know if you can get these anymore. This particular unit is made by a company called Zero Lemon. And I’ve had this for years and years and years. It takes about six to seven hours to charge this off of a wall plug, but this thing will charge lights, cell phones, anything that you can charge off usb. This thing will charge it. And they never seem to die, but sadly, they’re difficult to get. After making this video, I found a link where you can actually pick these up for 42 bucks.

So I’ll leave that link below. These are well worth it. And it also comes with its own built in solar panel, as well as a light on the back. Now, I’ll leave links to everything here if you’re so inclined to want to pick them up or whatever. But the methods for saving electricity once you generate it are endless. I have a larger unit like this in my truck. It’s a lithium power pack made by ecoflow. I like ecoflow, a hell of a lot better than Goal Zero. But I happen to have this little unit. So it is what it is.

This is the unit that I have in my truck. This thing charges incredibly fast and it lasts for days powering my laptops. And my laptops are energy consuming. Razer Blade Pro 17. So this thing works. This company, Liron Energy, used to work with a company called Humless. Humless made lithium power packs and I had them back in the day, but they never seem to work. They always seem to have an issue, blah, blah blah. But Lion Energy offers power packs like this. It’s got a wall plug built into it, an AC plug. It’s also got USBs on the side and a charging port for a 12 volt plug.

Like this guy right here. You see what I’m saying? So again, methods to store electricity once you’ve generated it are pretty much endless. All of these will take a charge from solar, which is phenomenal. All of these things I use this I don’t really use, it sits in my drone Pelican case as a backup to charge my drones if I so need them. These, I use these constantly, absolutely constantly, and I’ve never worn them down. Goal Zeros are good, but they don’t seem to put out as much energy as ecoflow does. It is what it is.

So check this out. There’s also other ways to have power. When there’s no sun, there’s no electricity, the grids down, whatever. You can get these things from a company called My Glasses on chargetab. And it’s an emergency cell phone charger. This little sealed pouch will give you allegedly 1500 milliamps, enough to charge your cell phone once or twice. And then there’s another addition made by a company called biolite. And it’s this little. It looks like something you might want to sneak into prison the way it’s shaped. But this is just basically an 18650 battery inside an indestructible tube with a USB outlet and a micro USB inlet.

Tons of ways to store electricity once you’ve created it. And as you can see, I mean this is, this is how this, this wasn’t set up for this video. This is how my island looks anyway. Goal 0. Goal 0. 500amp hour batteries, 18 650s sure fires. We live in a world where everything runs on batteries. And what I do, I need batteries for everything. You’re watching right now. You see what I’m saying? So years and years ago I got this from a company called Sherpa. And you can see it’s been well loved. You see what I’m saying? And it’s a flashlight and it’s not a very bright flashlight.

But what I loved about this was you see all those hand crank ones you can get online? The emergency flashlight. I guess this doesn’t shut up the emergency flashlights or the emergency radio. Well, the hand crank on them sucks. This Sherpa has an amazing hand crank, but all it does is power this really weak flashlight. And the company that makes this is called Freeplay. Trying to find anything from them is next to impossible. But this is called a DC dynamo charger. This creates a DC current, a direct current, and then you can transform it into an alternating current, which is what I do.

Now, this is pretty much good for nothing except making this really dim flashlight work. But again, I’ve had it for years. I used to make bug out bags. I’d always include one because it’s perpetual. You’ve always got juice, so there is that. But years ago when I was in the military, we had these bad boys for powering comms, communications, radios. Now this is a serious, serious dynamo. You can get these on Amazon or wherever, and they’re about 169 bucks. And they come with all the connections you possibly need. And after researching all the different types of handheld dynamos available, this was the best one that I could find.

And when it arrived, I was pleasantly surprised at how well built this particular item is. So there’s that with this hand crank, as long as you crank it, you can produce energy. You can sit here for hours and hours and hours and charge any one of these things all the way to full. It’s just a matter of putting the energy into it. No pun intended. But these things, this is a. This is made by Vivore, I believe. Again, I’ll leave a link. It was about $169. It comes with everything you need. You can adjust how much, how much energy comes out of it for the device that you’re using.

But this is an incredibly well built unit. And it’s small. This is very small. I mean, this is the size of a good sized pack of cigarettes if people still use those. But this will create electricity that will charge this, this, this and even this. This will actually charge a regular vehicle battery. It’s just a matter of how long you’re going to sit there and crank this handle. But it will do that. I’m telling you that because I’ve done that. It takes a long time, but it’s doable. And when you’ve got no other option. There you go.

Years ago, a company named KTOR came out with this and it was called the Pocket Socket. It still is called the Pocket Socket. Now, the company KTOR is still around, they’re still creating human power generators. They’ve got the pedal version, the hand crank version, and you can make these on your own. But these are already pre made, ready to go and they come with everything you need in the box already. And I have no affiliation. So before I show you how these pre made KTOR energy producing devices operate, I’m going to show you a bunch of links where you can get these much heavier duty units.

But they’re from China and they take a long time and who knows how well they’re made or not made. And I’m also going to leave you links on how to make your own generator using a bicycle. It’s incredibly easy to do if you’ve got the time. Some of them require a little bit of welding, some of them don’t require any welding, you can bolt it all together, etc. But there’s lots of ways to produce energy when A, you have no electricity, B, you have no solar, or C, the grids down completely. Department of Homeland Security every single year twice issues a warning about an EMP attack or an EMP from the sun or something to that effect.

So having one of these is smart. It’s not being paranoid, it’s not being a quote unquote prepper. But the variety of ways you can make your own power generating unit are pretty much endless. What I’m going to show you in the video are units that you can get that are already pre made so you don’t have to go through it or maybe you don’t have the tools or the time to do it. If I had more time and I wasn’t working on my vehicle constantly, perpetually, I would have built one of these. So I’m going to show you what I’ve got to make energy today.

Okay? So check this out. This pocket socket can easily charge any of these guys any of these. So let’s start with the tough one right here. This has a power, this has a wall wart, a power pack with it and it takes a pretty, you know, I mean this is made for a wall outlet. Now check this out. I need to turn it so I can see it too. But. This isn’t the best feeling. But this will absolutely, without a doubt charge this. It’s just a matter of you sitting here. Now you could fasten this, you could Clamp this to a table to make it much more stable and just keep turning it and it will absolutely do its job.

Now this is an old version. I’ve had this for probably 10 years. The one that they sell now, Ktor. I’ll leave links, no affiliation. I’ll leave links to them. The one they sell now no longer has the outlet. It’s just a us. It’s just a USB outlet or a 12 volt one of the two. I don’t remember. I’ll figure it out and I’ll let you know. But I’ll tell you what. I’ve had this for a long time. I’ve carried this for a long time. It’s not awesome, but it will without a doubt charge this, this, this, this.

A truck battery or even the thousand. The ecoflow Big boy I got in my truck, I forget the exact nomenclature on it. This cost about $70 if memory serves. And it works really well. This is 160. They do the same job. This does not have an outlet. This does, but this has a much better feel to it. But this is pretty much military grade. It’s just got a better feel to it. And that’s all no big deal. So I’m not putting Ktor down or anything like that. This, in a pinch, you just plug right in. No.

2 full, no fooling around. No two ways about it. These, this will charge all of these. This will charge all of these. But Ktor also made this bad Larry. Now there’s a bunch of different versions of hand crank, handmade dynamos that you can make yourself. But believe it or not, for me it’s just easier because I got enough going on in my life. I’m building enough things, just constantly maintaining my vehicle and everything else that I do. You see what I’m saying? So if somebody’s already got this built for me, so much the better. But I will leave links below so you can go to channels where you can take an alternator and build your own setup like this.

Now, once again, years ago when this first came out, I don’t know what the deal is. This is made by the same company this used to have an outlet on. No longer does. It now has a 12 volt socket on it. And they supply you with this. So you can just plug right in. You can take these two, positive and negative, put them on a battery which in turn can charge everything else. Or you can take this guy, which they also supply, plug it right into the 12 volt and charge your. I don’t like how that feels this is a cheap one, but I mean, where are you going to get a well made unit like this? Everything essential in China, except for this.

I believe you plug this in. Now this is something, I mean this is something you’re supposed to sit down and pedal right off the bat. It’s making 14. Now I wouldn’t pedal this necessarily, but you can, you can fasten this to the floor. You could put a nail through it, fasten it someplace and just sit there and pedal to your heart’s content. And this creates enough juice where you can quickly charge one of these, a truck battery. Or you can hook an inverter straight up to this, a 12 volt inverter with plugs in it, plug things in and charge all sorts of things.

Because this does feel good. This is, this feels just like this military version and they’re made by the same company. This might feel a little weak because I’ve had it for so long, but it might not feel weak to you. I don’t know. So out of total curiosity, I hooked up the KTOR Powerbox 50 to straight up to a 700 watt pure wave sign inverter. And I wanted to see if it could power this thing. Which means all three green lights will come on if it created enough power to actually drive this thing without a 12 volt battery in between.

And as you can see by the lights, if you crank it enough, it does it. So this will be. This right now is producing straight up electricity out of that inverter with no battery involved at all. That’s not how you do it, but I wanted to see. Now this is how you do it. You take a 12 volt battery, you hook up to the KTOR box or any of the generators, you take the red and the black leads that they come with, you hook it up to the positive and negative on the battery, and then you take a cable from the positive and the negative and you run it to an inverter.

Now you have the battery storing any electricity you’re creating with the Ktor and it’s providing constant steady power to the inverter. And voila, viola, you’ve got electricity. Any one of the units that I showed you, the small units that have a hand crank, will power up this battery. The one that I’m showing you now will power it up the most efficiently. And again, you can make any type of variation of this off of the veritable cornucopia of how to videos and diagrams available on the Internet, which I will link below. If I had More time. And I wasn’t fixing my vehicle for another road trip.

Hopefully I would have made one, but again, time was not on my side. But that in a nutshell is some of the ways that if you’ve got no solar, if you’ve got no power, these things will save your butt. Because you can without a doubt create DC voltage which you can turn into AC voltage, direct current to alternating current and you’re good to go. This little guy is not very expensive at all. They’re on Amazon. Or you can buy them directly from ktor’s website, which I’ll leave links below. Again, no affiliation. I’ve carried this for years.

They work really well. These I highly recommend because this is very, very portable, but this is good for your homestead, etc. And again, you can make your own version of this with a broke down bicycle, an alternator and a little bit of skills. Or you can get it prepackaged. It comes in the box, everything you need is already in there and it’s good to go. I’ve been home since early November. I’ve seen the sun twice every single day. It’s not like New England, it’s like England. If you don’t have any electricity, if you don’t have any solar, your solar panels are useless.

I’ve got a solar panel permanently affixed to the top of my truck. It’s great as long as there’s juice or sun. So these are some methods and these are really good to have because it’s energy that is stored and when you need it, you’ve got it for so very many different reasons. These right here can be a lifesaver. This is a very small unit. I’ve just got it. I don’t even know why I even have this. I have no idea how I even got it, to be perfectly honest with you, but there it is. That’ll charge a laptop maybe twice.

I’m not exactly sure. But the unit that I have in my truck will keep my Razor Blade Pro 17s, which are monsters for editing, but they eat battery like you read about, which is why I have a separate lithium power pack in my truck simply to charge my laptops when I’m on the road because they eat so much juice they’ll kill my batteries while I’m parked overnight. So that’s how I get around it. But these are some incredibly smart things to have if I was going to pick one. If you are not mobile, this is the one to have in your house.

Because this will create a large amount of electricity. You can pedal or you can hand crank it if you’re mobile. This is definitely the one to go because this thing is a beast. 169. It took a little bit to get here, but it definitely works well. They give you everything you need to hook it up to. Pretty much everything you’d ever need to hook it up to. It’s incredibly well constructed. They claim that it’s waterproof and it’s got a, it’s got a band right here so that you can actually strap it to your hand so it’s, you know, it’s sturdy.

But long story longer. Trying to keep this video short. Solar is amazing. 12 volt is our lives. I mean, look at the batteries. Are you kidding me? All of this stuff is great with solar. Unless you’ve got no sun. Having one of these backups is not only smart, it could absolutely, without a doubt save your life. Now if you watch this video this far, I’m going to be giving away one of these vessel emergency kits. One of each. These are brand new to two people. Just comment that you’re in like and share the video and I’ll pick somebody at the end of next week.

Each one will win one of these. These are valued at about 75 to 100 a piece. And these are serious. These are serious little units. They look very similar to pipe bombs I would imagine, but they’re not. They’re stuffed with all sorts of different survival, first aid, etc, etc, this, that and the other things. All right guys, I think that is pretty much it. If this video made sense to you, hit that. Like share and subscribe. Leave a comment below and I will try to return the favor. I am out.
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