A Geek Goes Flying

I was already a fan of the fuelrod chargers available at the Disneyland parks, as I’ve discussed before . But the old ones, with the USB A port for charging and a USB B Micro port for recharging the fuelrod, were compromised devices: Good in a pinch and easily swapped for a fresh battery inside the parks, but with the caveats of a slow 5 W charging speed and relatively small capacity. A few weeks ago, trying to swap the old fuelrod for a new one resulted in a notice that the old device would be upgraded free of charge to the new kit, which comes with a redesigned fuelrod itself (“Mobile Power Bank Model R32A/B”), USB C to Lightning, USB C to USB C, and USB C to USB B Micro and USB A to USB C adapters. The rod itself now has a single USB C port used for both charging other devices and recharging itself. Four green LEDs display the state of charge (full to empty). And, critically, the batttery appears to be larger capacity (11.52 Wh, 3.6V 3200 mAh), and the charging speed is greater, now...

FuelRod charging iPhone through Klein ET920 FuelRods get dissed a lot, somewhat deservedly. I’m here to recommend them, in very specific contexts. First, the downsides: They’re expensive ($30 at a Disneyland kiosk, circa spring 2020), they have limited capacity, and they charge slowly, at ~5W. In an instrumented test, I found a fully charged FuelRod (green light, after recharging at home via microUSB) brought an iPhone 12 Pro from 13% to 67% (about a 53% recharge) and took about 1 hour 24 minutes to do so. According to my Klein , total transfer was about 6.796 Wh (1349 mAh); the iPhone 12 Pro has a 2815 mAh battery at 3.83V (10.78 Wh), though mine’s about a year old and reports 87% maximum capacity remaining. But, all of that said, they offer one huge advantage that cannot be discounted: When they’re depleted, you can swap them for a fully charged replacement, free of charge, at a number of kiosks throughout Disneyland and California Adventure. There are very few places where you can ...