Horizon MiniPak personal fuel cell charger hits shelves for $100
By Laura June 
posted June 16th 2010 1:43PM
posted June 16th 2010 1:43PM
We first laid our eyes and hands on Horizon's MiniPak personal fuel cell charger back at CES and now it's finally available for purchase. Designed for charging portable electronics on the go, the MiniPak has two refillable cartridges, each with the juice equivalent of around 1,000 AA batteries. The MiniPak -- which uses Hydrogen to produce electricity -- isn't the first portable fuel cell, but it's certainly the cheapest. Check out our demo video from CES 2010 after the break. You can hit the source link if you're looking for a $99 fuel cell for your very own.
Oh correction, it's only 7 or 8 AA batteries. I knew it was way too good to be true. Way to mislead us Engadget!
@Yankee
Honestly, how is this better than using one of those 4 AA USB chargers with rechargeable batteries? Much easier and cheaper to recharge the batteries, than to extract H from water and use a fuel cell for crying out loud, which is probably less efficient too.
My guess is that they're using some sort of solid substrate inside the cartridge to absorb the hydrogen and reduce leakage. Because h2 molecules are smaller than any other molecule, they sneak out of the best sealed containers at an alarming rate (up to 3% loss per day.)
You can stabilize the gas and keep it around a lot longer if you provide a substrate with a fine microarchitecture (lots of surface area for h2 molecules to cling to.) Perhaps this substrate and/or the seals break down after 100 - 150 recharges.
Assuming that it gets 8 batteries worth per charge, and is good for enough charges to have a lifetime total of 1000 batteries, that means that one of the cells will be at the end of it's lifespan in only a year if you recharge it ever 2.8 days. 2.5 days between charges on the lower spectrum.
I really don't get why they didn't aim for something other than power-through-usb. This really isn't enough juice to be that handy. That's really a shame, since I was looking forward to this.
As a first effort, I think this is pretty reasonable.
After a few model generations this thing could be pretty promising.
Although it seriously limits it's use if you can't take it on a passenger plane.
7 to 8 AA batteries =
Either
10 volts and about 2000mah
or
1.5 volts and 16 Amps
So which one is it?
Didn't the guy in the video say that one cell holds the equivalent of 7or 8 AA batteries, not 1000?
DOES NOT COST $99... try $600
$99 for the Minipak & 2 Hydrostiks
$499 for Hydrofill home recharger (to recharge the Hydrostiks)
Needs to come down a bit...
Place a MiniPAK order online!
www.HorizonMiniPAKusa.com is up and running and US orders can now be placed online.
Check it out for information and pricing about the MiniPAK, HydroFILL, HydroSTIK and Solar Panel. They are all available for order and can be purchased at this location. The HydroPAK will not be available until early 2011.
Email usasales@horizonfuelcell.com with questions.