Pure DC power and the New Year.

Hi Everyone,

As we close out the year, I wanted to close out with a few thoughts...

Ideas come and go only to be replaced with new, bigger, better tech, cheaper tech. Ideas get copied and ideas get replaced.  This ultimately means change. Change sometimes can be a struggle. It means coming up with new ideas that are wanted by enough of us.  For those of you who know us, we seldom redo what other's have done (like selling batteries for cell phones).  Doing what's in our DNA is a prerequisite for us.  If our heart is not in it, we won't do it.  We are not into doing things half measure and so disappointing people. We do things with our whole heart or not at all.

In the new year, we hope to introduce new product categories. One of them we are looking at is the Apple HomePod, and the other... well... we'll just leave it as a surprise.
Our goal will continue to be efficiently squeezing out every ounce of power so you can keep your devices running longer on pure DC power.  We will continue to pursue looking for ways to prevent inversion of power (the use of inverters) which in itself is a huge waste of energy, especially for those who are mobile and need every ounce of energy to keep their devices going. So look forward to some fresh new concepts and Tech from us in 2018.

Finally, I wanted to thank you for your support and all your kind emails.  It is the "power" that keeps us going!  It is great to know that we have helped even just one more individual get more work done!

I wish each and all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Stay powered up!  

Mike

MCT-corp.com

Black Friday Sale Going on Right Now!

Black Friday Sale for Limited time!  Starting 8amET Nov 24!*
Get $10.00 off our NEW USB-C car and Battery Adapter, coupon code "MCT10USBC"
Get 60% off our Solar Panels, coupon code "MCTBFSALE60"Get 45% off on “The Boss 24AH”! Code "MCTBFSALE45"
Get 40% off on our “Little Giant 12AH”, “Slim Power 16AH”, “Super Slim 20AH” batteries! Code "MCTBFSALE40"
Get 30% off any of our batteries by entering code "30MCTDISC" upon checkout!
Get 10% everything else by entering code "10disc".
*Restrictions apply. One per customer per order. Limited time, until supplies last. $10, 60%, 45%, 40% discounts Start 8amET end at Mid-night ET. Other restrictions, Email us.

Mikegyver Engineering Services

Hi,


In our last blog, we mentioned that we are going to make a business move toward engineering services.  So what does this actually mean?  Mikegyver's first product was actually modified Apple MacBook Car adapters.  Anyone who follows us knows that we simply bought Apple supplied Adapters, cut off the Magsafe cable and converted it to be used on PURE DC power (for use in cars and with batteries).  This meant less energy wastage through the use of inverters to those who appreciate saving energy.

We quickly moved on to Microsoft Surface tablets and did the same thing there.  With these nifty adaptations, we have helped thousands and thousands of people who appreciate being more efficient with their power. 

Throughout our journey, we constantly come across people who wanted to know if they can alter some of their other devices to become more efficient with DC power for various reasons but most especially if they are interested in off the grid living.  We have had to convert Mac Mini's, Apple Airport routers, and of course our Apple TV which we are selling in our store.  We also tackled harder to power devices like the Lenovo Yoga tablets which had no car adapters at the time.  More recently we created our very own USB-C car/battery adapter that is powerful enough to charge the power-hungry MacBook Pro 15" touchbar and more.

Obviously, all these conversions have led us to think that there could be far more of you out there struggling with some kind of power issue that we could help with or that have a power challenge that no accessory or device on the market is catering to at the moment. Therefore our new engineering service...

So! Do you have something that you'd like to have convert for you or a power source problem that you think we might be able to help with? Or do you have a device that only has AC input and you'd like for it to run on DC power?  Perhaps you need us to put on some special connector for your camera battery (for you photographers out there)? How about just some power needs for that gadget of yours? Or perhaps you know of someone in need of these services?

Contact us for your low power needs!

Until next time, 

Stay powered up!  

Mike

MCT-corp.com

Facts you didn't know about power and power banks

Understanding Power Banks and  Power cables

Is it possible for a small battery to outlast large batteries?

Not all Power Banks (or External Batteries) are the same.  Power Bank capacity is usually measured in mAH or WH.  Most of the time you'll see the capacity measured in mAH.  The higher capacity the longer it will keep your device powered.  So, for example, a 52,800mAH battery will last longer than a 32,400mAH battery.  So...if you would like to keep an iPhone 6Plus running for about 11 recharges, you should consider a battery like our "executive" that is 34,200mAH.  I'll normally try to stay away from doing math but here you go :-)  (34200mAH / 2916mah = 11.11)

"Executive" Battery

As I am saying this, I bet you are thinking: "But I've seen a tiny battery on eBay and/or Amazon showing a 200,000mah how can that be?" In short, they are being mislabeled.  The best way to tell the difference between two battery capacities is simply to look at its size.  Think of batteries like a bottle of water or a gas tank.  If you have a small battery claiming to be 200,000mah and is the size of a pack of gum and a battery like our "executive" that is 34,200mah that is a size of a book.  It's quite obvious that the bigger battery will outlast the smaller battery!

Can all Power banks charge Laptops or large devices like powered coolers, etc?

Most small batteries have a small USB power port - normally only around 5v. They are intended for small devices like cell phones and tablets only.  They do not have the capability to power or recharge large devices like laptops.  MCT-Tech's main focus has always been to make batteries that can power both.  Even our "Little Giant" (which is our smallest power bank) can recharge a laptop, because it has both a USB power port and a high power port.  Keep in mind again, however, that the "Little Giant" will not last a long time with a laptop. It is only recommend when needing to few more minutes before your internal battery on your laptop dies.

What is the lifespan do you expect for your Power Banks?

Our Power banks are built to last approximately 500 cycles.  The more you discharge it from 100% to 0%,  the more you will 'wear' out the battery. Good practice is to recharge the Power bank before it fully depletes.

Will standard Power Banks charge all laptops?

No.  A lot of laptops these days employ a special sense pin that will not turn on unless a factory power adapter is used.  The most notable are Apple's MacBook line of laptops.  They have a "MagSafe" connector that Apple has a patent on.  In the early days, even if one was able to clone the connector, it would still not charge because it lacks the special IC built into the Magsafe connector (This was also part of Apple Patent).  We are actually the first to pioneered car adapters and batteries for the full line of  MacBook's by cutting off the MagSafe cable from the AC adapter and putting it on car adapters and batteries.  
Today, however, Chinese manufacturers have almost perfected the Magsafe cable and unless you have a trained eye, you would almost not be able to tell the difference anymore!

This same goes for the Microsoft magnetic cable too.

MCT-Tech has also helped many customers from HP, Lenovo, and Dell who are using special cables to be able to utilize our batteries well.  If you have a device that won't charge, contact us! This is our passion.

On this note, we would like to use segue to announce that we are shifting our business model to helping our customers get power from any number of sources.  We are going to be focusing on converting devices that are normally only AC power (household) DC power, like we have with The AppleTV (and hopefully if you ask for it) DC source for the new Apple HomePod.

In short, our motto will be "Engineering alternative efficient power sources for your Devices".

We will be discontinuing some of our batteries and Car adapters and only focusing on direct power solutions and would love to hear your thoughts on our ideas.

Until next time,

Stay powered up!  

Mike

MCT-corp.com

30% discount on our Batteries!

30% discount on our Batteries!

We are increasing our summer sales of our batteries to 30%!

Please use discount code:
30Disc when purchasing

Please note that for larger devices like the Macbook Pro 15" Touchbar, we only recommend our larger batteries (the "CEO" and the "Executive")

Why not make hay while the sun is shining hey?

Limited time offer - get yours now.

Stay powered up!  

Mike

MCT-corp.com

Hurricane, No Power, No Internet, Oh my!

Hi everyone.

As you know Hurricane Irma visited us recently.  I wanted to thank everyone who emailed us their well wishes during her visit.  It was really nice just knowing you guys were out there! We were lucky enough not to have suffered major damage, but this was the first time in my life I had to prepare for a hurricane of this size.  In the past, it has been mostly just removing all loose items in the yard. The real challenge with Irma came in her aftermath actually.We had no power for a whole week, which was the longest I have ever been without power.  That meant no internet, little to no cell phone coverage and, for us, no water. One doesn't realize how reliant we are on power and you only truly start appreciating it when you don't have it!

Fortunately, a good friend gave us a generator last year and I could not thank him enough during this time!  We used it to run our refrigerator and portable AC unit.

Lucky for us, we had plenty of batteries! :-)

My wife and I each used one of our "Executive" batteries for our cell phones and it they kept both phones charged the WHOLE week!  I also had the "CEO" ready to go and used that for our Macbook Pro's, hooking the portable printer up to it too just in case we would have to go a week more.

Because we had little internet, we didn't use our laptops much, but by mid week I noticed that cell coverage improved so I started making alternative plans should we not get power.  That meant subscribing to mobile hotspots for internet and finally beginning to process our backlog orders.

I did a lot of thinking in that week in the dark. I have been thinking of a shift in our business model. I have done a lot of things for our house that border on "off grid" living including the way we keep the water running (we are on a well and not dependent on city water).  To blog about all my ideas would take up a whole new series of blogs...so...in short...I re-piped our well so that we have a secondary lower powered pump for water. I learnt that you need to be more efficient with your power resources when living off the grid.

Have you been thinking of ways in which to be more efficient with power should it ever run out? Does off the grid living interest you? Send us your emails or simply comment below.

Ok, well...Storms gone, and I still have much to do.  Thank you for your patience with our orders.

Stay powered up!  

Mike

MCT-corp.com

USB-C Video

Check out our USB-C Video!
https://youtu.be/agGHBpkaMBo

Final Update 5: USB-C charger adapter - NOW AVAILABLE!

Hi Everyone,

We're proud to announce that our USB-C Car and External battery adapter is NOW available!!

Charge your Macbook Pro 15" touchbar or any other larger device with our USB-C adapter.
It can plug into any car cigarette plug and any external battery power bank that output's 12-24vdc.

Do you have a battery that has a special connector, we'll modify it for you!

Get yours here now!!!

Stay powered up!  

Mike

MCT-corp.com

Update 5: USB-C charger adapter - Pre-Order here!

Hello,

Just wanted to update everyone, that we've posted more pictures of our final product!

It looks beautiful in shiny White! Click here 

Stay powered up!  

Mike

MCT-corp.com

TSA and external batteries

Hi all,

Do you remember the last time we wrote about being stopped by Airport Security (TSA)?  For those of you who missed it, please check it out here: So I got stopped at #TSA ~ #TravellingTips #TravellingTales

I recently had another opportunity fly and keeping in mind what happened last time, I decided to see what would happen if I took our "Executive" battery along for the ride.

On arriving at the TSA, we had to perform the usual drill: put iPad in separate bins, take off shoes....etc. Not sure of what to expect, I left my 34.2ah battery (127wh) in my bag and shoved it through the X-ray machine. Well, I ended up walking through the body scanner and picking up my backpack (with my battery inside) on the other side. They didn't stop me, there were no delays and everything went quiet smoothly! All I kept thinking was: "Damn, I am not going to have much to blog about!"

Besides my disappointment at a lack of blog content though 😂, I am happy to report that it seems that even our Executive may at times makes it through TSA.

So with nothing else to blog about, I thought I would use this space just to answer a recent question by one of our battery users. He was asking us how we calculate our battery capacities (thinking all our batteries where over the 100W max for airlines). We calculate our battery capacities by multiplying the voltage of the individual cells inside the battery by it's total Ah.
For example  - with our "executive" battery, the cells inside are each 3.7v so we take 3.7v x 34200mah which would then = 127wH.

If you do these calculations with all of our batteries, you will actually see that technically, the only two batteries that are not TSA compliant are our "CEO" which is ~195wH and our "Executive" which is ~127wH.  All the rest of our batteries (which we call the platinum batteries) are good to go for TSA.

Why am I telling you this? Are we telling you to break the law or that you won't ever get stopped at TSA if you carry our CEO or Executive?  No.  Remember, your 'mileage' may vary, and you could end up having your battery confiscated or worse. Also remember...there is a reason they call me Mikegyver!! 😂

I have always wondered though, what the difference is between taking two 24aH batteries on a flight (177wH in total) and one big battery (like our Executive) that is 127wH. We would love to hear your thoughts on this one or any stories you might have of getting any of our batteries through TSA.
So what do you think? Is it the same as taking two batteries or one large one?  Is it worth the risk?

Stay powered up "SAFELY"!  

Mike

MCT-corp.com

Update 4: USB-C charger adapter - Pre-Order here!

Pre -Orders open

Hi Everyone,

We are finally in production and super excited!!
We also just wanted to let everyone know that pre-orders are now open!

Don't pay too much attention to the pictures yet, as the final unit will be glossy white.  We'll update the pictures as we get them.  Consider this a Pre-announcement only!

Herewith then our pre-order link - place your order now:

http://mikegyver.com/store/index.php?product/page/2095/USB-C+Car+Adapter+charger

Stay powered up!  

Mike

MCT-corp.com

UPDATE 3: USB-C charger Entering Production

UPDATE 3:  USB-C charger - We Are Finally Entering Production!

Hi everyone, just wanted to send a small update.

We have officially entered into production for the World's First USB-C car and battery charger!
We expect it to be available in about a month and we are looking to have pre-orders up shortly.

If you have been following our blog, you might have noted that our USB-C charger was originally going to be 87w.  For our current model, we had to compromise on the 87w power, dropping it down to 60w so as to maintain compatibility across all the larger devices like Macbook, Dell, HP, etc. Please be assured that 60w of power is still plenty of power (more then anyone else!) to charge and power your New Macbook Pro 15" from car or Battery.  Also, there are a lot of external batteries out there that do not support 87w power which could potentially cause overload conditions.

Stay powered up!  

Mike

MCT-corp.com

New Surface Pro 4 and Lind Car adapters

New Surface Pro 4 and related power supplies.

We have been selling Surface Pro Car accessories since the Surface hit the market.  More specifically, our Lind Candy adapters originally could charge the Surface Pro 3 and Surface Pro 4. But with the latest updates from Microsoft, it seems the Lind Candy adapter will no longer be able to power the Surface Pro 4.

As indicated by this thread:

http://www.surfaceforums.net/threads/new-power-supply-has-65w.17858/

it seems that the adapter that currently ships with the Surface Pro 4 is a bit underpowered!  Also, looking at Microsoft's website, they only seem to be stocking the larger sized 65w replacement adapters and not the smaller 36w adapter that actually ships with the Surface Pro 4.

So, as of today, we are changing our store lineup and selling the Lind "candy" size adapter for the Surface Pro 3 ONLY.  The Surface Pro 4's Lind adapters will be shipped with a higher power Lind adapter comparable to the 65W Microsoft replacement adapters.  This larger size/higher power Lind adapter will allow users to continue to charge the Surface Pro 4 battery while the tablet is in use.

Stay powered up!  

Mike

MCT-corp.com

UPDATE 2: USB-C Adapter for full line of USB-C Macbooks! (Almost there)

I am so excited guys! We are almost there!

Final prototype in testing.

If all final testing goes well, we'll have pre-order up soon, so watch this space!

World's only USB-C car adapter and universal battery charger.

We recently tested our competitors, and we can safely say that we are going to be able to fully power a full sized Macbook Pro 15" from any External battery (within voltage output range of 12-24vdc),

Here are our some pictures of our prototype in final testing. (End casing will be white in color.)

(Pictures of our USB-C adapter after fully charging our MBP 15 from 0% charge.)

Stay tuned!  We will be announcing the launch of this great product first here!

Until then...

Stay powered up!  

Mike

MCT-corp.com

UPDATE: USB-C Adapter for full line of USB-C Macbooks!

Hi Everyone.

Thanks for emailing us your questions. We are still working hard on this project. 

USB-C is turning out to be harder than expected as getting it to work across all devices is not an easy task. One of the reasons why is because USB-C PD is a smart adapter which means there is communication between the charger and the device to adjust the voltage accordingly. Most of today's devices typically have one adapter to one device. 
Basically 1 to 1. USB-C is 1 to many.

The other delay has been our Courier unfortunately crushing our prototype during delivery which created a long wait whilst getting another one done :-(

Despite all of this, we are moving forward steadily and we will keep you all posted regarding our progress.
Thanks for your patience. 

Stay powered up!  

Mike

MCT-corp.com

HP Charge cable - Exclusive offer

Hi all,

Here's another Mikegyver Exclusive...(only found here!) 

Our HP charge cable helps you connect our batteries to your HP and includes a special sense pin to allow for full speed charging!

Check out its specs and more at:

http://mct-corp.com/store/index.php?product/page/2076/HP+Charge+Cable 

Stay powered up!  

Mike

MCT-corp.com

Battery Box conversion

Hi All,

Recently a customer came to us about converting their Batterybox. He was concerned that we might not be able to convert the Batterybox due to the software used to control it since removing the center pin on Magsafe end.

So this is what you read about Batterybox:

BatteryBox powers your laptop rather than charging it, keeping the battery at the same charge percentage - minimizing the number of cycles and stress on your MacBook. This way you get the most power out of BatteryBox without wasting any energy from it travelling through the MacBook battery first. ”

After reading this, the below was my response to his concerns:

There cannot be software managing the device in the way mentioned above.  In fact, your Macbook would behave EXACTLY the same as the above description if you disabled the internal chip within the Magsafe. In the early days of the Magsafe, there were a lot of knock off magsafe cable that lacked the charging chip. All the cable did in essence was power the Macbook and NOT charge it. In fact, we have even seen some customers see their internal battery drain during high CPU usage.

The bottom line is this: Think of a battery as a cup of water.  You either drip power into your Macbook, or you pour as much as you can into the Macbook, at the end of the day you'll still have the same run time.

So now that that is explained, lets show you how we converted the Batterybox with a Genuine magsafe cable with full charging functionality restored!

A little bit of additional tibit: this is how they are bypassing Apple Patent, but leaving out the control chip within the Magsafe!

Like it?

Let us know.

Stay powered up!  

Mike

MCT-corp.com

Electricity is like water...

Hi!

Did you know electricity is just like water? 

Recently we had to troubleshoot a problem with an adapter that kept blinking on and off when connected to a Surface Pro 4. After extensive troubleshooting I realized that this might make for a great blog. So here we go...

A customer approached us with what he thought was a problem with one of our car adapters; no matter what he did, it kept blinking on and off. I told him that the power source (his vehicle) was not providing enough power. Obviously this suggestion was laughable though, after all, it was a brand new large and powerful vehicle, plus his other smaller devices where working fine. Plus on top of that, if he put his Surface Pro 4 to sleep, it worked fine for a while.

But his setup was not regular in any way and as mentioned before...it was a large vehicle. 

No matter how much I tried to tell him that the wires going to his adapter did not have enough power to keep his Surface powered up, I could not convince him though that there was nothing wrong with our adapter and was politely asked to mail when we had an upgrade that fixed his power cycling problem even after showing him that a smaller car with less devices and shorter cable run from engine compartment to cab solved the problem!

The bottom line was that we were fighting physics!

In order to explain in the simplest possible way, I will use an analogy:

The power supply to your device is like a small garden hose. Your smaller devices just need the garden hose to be happy. Your larger devices (like the Surface Pro 4) need a Fire hose. You CAN get around this is by putting your device into sleep/shutdown mode so that it has enough time for the garden hose to fill up the internal cup (battery) thus allowing for water to be pulled from internal cup and the vehicle. But, when that cup gets depleted, however, it simply pulls from garden hose again and then starts to choke.

So in order to fix it, you have to give it a bigger hose...so it has plenty of water to operate on. Obviously to turn your "garden hose" into a "fire hose", you need to give it a bigger wire. 
Another thing to consider sometimes is a bottleneck between the power source and the device. Think of it like a kink in your water hose.

I hope I have made something rather complicated a bit clearer...if not let me know in the comments below  :-)

Stay powered up!  

Mike
MCT-corp.com

USB-C Adapter for full line of USB-C Macbooks!

Available soon!

We have had so many requests for our USB-C battery and Car adapters for Macbook Pro's (and other USB-C devices) and so have decided to give you a bit of a teaser with pics of our prototype.

Our prototype in production

When done, it will be compatible with all our batteries, and will charge from your car. It will support full line Power Delivery devices including the 87W Macbook Pro as well as USB-C outputs of 20V,4.3A,   20V,3A, 14.5V,2A, 9V,3A and 5.2V,2.4A

Not Pictured: USB-A Output:  3.6-6.5V/3A, 6.5-9V/2A, and 9-12V/1.5A

We have had a few delays in getting our USB-C to work with a wide range of device but we think that we should be ready for release in around 2 more months.

In the meantime, we have sent a few prototypes out into the market to select individuals for testing to assist us with our final design so please let us know if you'd like to consider testing one.

If you would be interested in placing a Pre-Order, please let us know in the comments below.

Stay powered up! 

Mike
MCT-corp.com

Why inverters are a waste of energy.

Inverters vs Direct Current.

We have actually covered this issue so many times on our website and Q&A pages, that it took me completely by surprise when I realized that I had actually never blogged about it! So you, our loyal blog followers have never learnt why inverters are a complete waste of energy or why you cannot use inverters for your large devices such as Macbook Pro's - well at least not from me :-)

So without any further ado..after just receiving yet another email from a user who asked why he should switch from and inverter which would cost him $39.95 to our more expensive setup... I figured its time to explain. 

Without making it too complicated, 

1.  Inverters convert DC power (car/Airplane/boat power) into AC power (household power). 
2.  Say for instance you are using an Apple adapter with an inverter, the Apple adapter actually  converts the AC power BACK to DC power. 
3.  You can see for yourself that you are wasting a tremendous amount of energy converting from  DC to AC,  then BACK to DC. (That's 12vdc -> 110vac -> 16.5vdc in Geek speak)

TADAAAAA!!

Obviously, this could mean a dead car/airplane/boat battery sooner then you think if using straight battery power! For this reason inverters are often times useless on airplanes because they supply limited power and also why inverters will almost always fail to charge your Macbook or will charge it but shock you in the process.

Here is a diagrammatic representation of the scenario:



The above diagram, however, depicts how our DC adapter works. It just modifies what is already laptop friendly DC power (in your car/airplane/boat), from 12vdc to 16.5vdc. A small step up and no wasted energy! Also, because it is extremely efficient, it leaves you with enough power to charge your Macbook Pro enough to last your entire airline trip - including delays - not to mention longer run times if you are using batteries.

 If you are an avid follower, you will remember one of our previous blogs in which we lent our DC adapter to a fellow airline passenger who was experiencing this exact same problem!

Our solution may not be the cheapest, but we can assure you that you will get more work done as we will most certainly save you time, and as the saying goes... "Time is money"!

Stay powered up!  Efficiently :-)

Mike
MCT-corp.com

How to make a backup light source in case you run out of power.

Hi Everyone,

If you follow our blog, you will see that we have blogged about how our batteries can be used for devices that are hard to connect, like Macbooks, Lenovo Yoga, and Microsoft Surface devices. You will also have seen that they can also be used everyday life to make your life easier ~ see how we stopped our dog from digging up our lawn. In this blog, though, I am going to tell you how they came about giving me much needed light in a really tight situation.

Not so long ago, Hurricane Matthew hit Florida with forces not recorded since 2008. We were blessed to escape with no injuries but like so many exposed to these kind of forces of nature, we found ourselves without power and no generator. In true #MikegyverStyle though I realized; we might not have a generator but we DID have TONS of batteries. 

I am sort of a "pack-rat" and save things "just in case" it can be used for something else - much to my wife's dismay. One of these particular items are automotive light bulbs that are only partially burnt out with one of their filaments still in working order.

Now as mentioned, we had TONS of batteries and quite a few of these partially burnt out automobile light bulbs, so I figured (as most people do who have ever run out of power or light whether camping or simply domestically) that our first priority was light!

A quick trip to the garage netted me a used bulb that I'd saved from my car. I then soldered up a wire and connector to the good filament on bulb, like this:

Set our voltage on the battery to 12v, plugged it in, and we had an instant light like this:

Now that we could see we could get more done and set about creating more #MikegyverStyle power solutions to get us through the crisis.

Of course when day dawned we whipped out our new solar panel kits to power up our batteries again and were ready for the next night.

I am grateful to our batteries for getting us through a tough time and my wife is now grateful for all the burnt out light bulbs I keep :-)

If you have one of our batteries and would like a step by step of how to set up your own Mikegyver LightBulb in case you are ever in a pinch, simply leave a comment below.

Stay Powered Up,

Mike

MCT-Corp

How our Batteries can keep you not only #PoweredUp, but connected too...

Welcome to 2017! We are happy to have you here with us and hope to keep you entertained for another year with our Blog on how to #StayPoweredUp!

So our first topic for the New Year is:

How to increase your internet reliability with your wireless router when the powers out?

My house has horrible wifi.  For some reason, my Apple Airport extreme has a hard time getting wifi signal into the next room even if it's just 25 feet away.  So I have no choice but to run hard Ethernet across my home, to my garage and to other Base stations so I can stay connected.  This would normally do the trick, but not in my case. As I had to run the cables around the outside of my house, around corner, and over the roof of my house, they were exposed to extreme weather and...squirrels!  

So when my cable got severed again for the umpteenth time, I decided to look for another solution..

After some research, I purchased the Netgear Orbi. This is a Mesh network that promises true internet speeds all over your house. I was skeptical at first but this router really works!  I could not believe the speed I was getting! Not to mention strong signal all over the house, even where I'd normally be gasping for Wifi.

Problem solved....  But in true #MikegyverStyle, I wanted an even better solution. So I thought: "Now that I am no longer tied to wires, why not make my wifi work even if I have a power failure!"

I am sure you can already see my shameless product plug coming :-), but it so happens that our batteries make a great Battery back up for your router when out of power. And let's not forget; because this is pure DC Power backup (UPS) it'll last longer on battery then traditional UPS's!

This picture shows our Mikegyver "Executive 34.2ah" battery, being used as a backup to our Netgear Orbi routers in our garage. How cool is that!?

If you are interested in finding out how it's done or you have any other innovative ideas around this concept, please comment below or email us!

Stay Powered Up,

Mike

MCT-Corp