Gear Review: Dark Energy Poseidon Portable Charger

Keeping small electronics charged out in the field is always an issue for me. We all love to photograph and video our camping, hunting, fishing and family adventures for social media and digital albums. It seems that my phone never has enough battery life for my excursions. I have tried the solar panel chargers, but unless you are in the perfect sunlight they never seem to work that well, or take forever.

This year at the Fred Hall Fishing and Tackle show Long Beach, I met up with the Dark Energy guys at their booth on the first day of the show. We talked about the product and I moved on, I had a lot of show to see and needed to keep my 3 year old moving. All weekend I thought about the portable charger and finally purchased it Sunday the last day of the show. With the show special it was 25% off so I could not beat that. I picked the Realtree Poseidon portable charger instead of the blakc. The camo and blaze orange look great along with the orange and black para cord charging cable. It also comes with a strap and a  screw lock carabiner. To charge an I Phone you can either buy a lighting cable from Dark Energy or use your lighting cable that came your phone. You can also get the lighting adapter for the existing charging cable to cut down on extra weight.


I have been using the charger for more than a month now. So far I am very impressed with the charging capabilities of this portable charger. Here are some of the manufacture specs of the unit.

Product Features

• 10,000 mAh of portable power
• Waterproof rating of IP-68 (highest possible rating)
• Durability rating of MIL-STD-810G (highest possible rating)
• Dual-port charging capability (2.4 and 1.0 amps respectively)
• Included Micro-USB paracord charging cable, carabiner, and nylon strap
• Built-in LED light and lantern with SOS signaling capability

Product Specs

• Input: 5V, 0.5-2.4A, Micro-USB
• Output: 5V, 1A and 2.4A USB
• Dimensions: 6in x 3.25in x .63in
• Weight: 9.6oz

What Can It Charge

• Smartphone (3-6x)
• Two-way Radio (4-8x)
• GPS (3-5x)
• Tablet (1-3x)
• Bluetooth Speaker (4-7x)
• Trail Cam (4-5)
• Rangefinder (6-8x)

 I have tried this charger out on a few different devices and can say that it works really well. So far I have used it on a few I Phones, a I Pad Mini, my Jabra ear bud, and my digital camera. I charged my mini I Pad from 100% dead to 100% charged in 3 hours with one dot left on the charging unit. I re-charged the unit and charged 10 I Phones with varying battery life anywhere 31%-80% all charged to 100% (most phones started charging around 75%). Charge time is about a 1.5 hours from 50% charged. I also charged my Jabra ear bud on the same charge. I charged my camera on a separate charge and left the house for the day. So I am not sure on the charge time. 

Recharging the Poseidon can be done with using the micro-USB cord from the wall or using a solar charger such as the Goal Zero or other solar chargers.

The Dark Energy Poseidon Portable Charger is great for family trips to multiple night back packing trips. The unit retails for $99.99 which is a little expensive. The Poseidon does a great job keeping your gear charged while you are out on the go. I have already recommended the Poseidon to at lest 3 of my friends who camp and backpack. I know 2 of them are already looking to get one.

Wind With A Side Of Shooting

This past weekend myself, Al and a few of his work buddies made the drive out to the shooting range. Our plan was to camp out Friday night and everyone else heading out first thing Saturday morning. Al and I left Friday afternoon and joined everyone else on the freeway trying to start the weekend. The drive was slow as we passed 2 car accidents and 1 car fire,  which gave us lots of time to talk about hunting this year, life, family and crack a few jokes.  As we got closer to the range I could feel the wind pulling and pushing the truck and I was not even driving. With the direction of the wind we were hoping that the one side of the canyon would block the wind. Once we arrived and got out of the truck and the wind hit us immediately. It was blowing a good 20-30 mph. Instead of shooting, we decide to hike out to a few old mines and do some exploring of the area.

We headed out on our adventure in the general direction of the mines with a ideal of the location but not completely sure. With the recent rains the desert wild flowers were in full bloom. The colors were bright, beautiful and everywhere. It was great to see the desert so alive. While we walked we looked for brass and other cool items. It makes me sad to see how much trash in the middle of nowhere used for target practice and left behind. When we shoot we bring a lot of water bottles and milk jugs to shoot at, but we will take breaks and clean up all shot up bottles and other targets.

 I came around a small hill and saw a tailing pile off in the distance. We had found the mine. We climbed the dirt road and walked right to the first mine. It amazes me that people were able to dig these mines by hand using just pure muscle and hand tools. The first mine seemed to be about 60 foot deep almost vertical. Then next mine was at a slight angle dropping about 30-40 feet then it looked to branch out from there. There were a few mines that where caved. The final mine was cut straight into the hillside. I explored hoping to find something cool but came up with just some brass. As I was looking out at the surrounding hills and noticed a white object in the distance. My MINOX binoculars are in the shop getting repaired so I asked Al to take a look and he was able to see 3 more targets in the distance. One hanging gong, a bowling pin and a heavy duty truck rim.Who ever had got the truck rim to where it was  put in some work to get it there.

With the sun setting we headed back to set up camp and get dinner going for the night. Al brought 3 different flavors of venison and all 3 where delicious. We cooked them over the open camp fire with some corn and just enjoyed the night. With the wind was still blowing and hopes of it calming down before morning. It was off to the tent that held up great in the winds.

In the morning we got up cleaned up camp and halfway loaded the truck. About 7:30 the rest of the group showed up. The wind picked up steadily as the sun rose with gusts up to 50 mph. Shooting long range was out for the day. We set up targets and shot for a few hours. With the wind pushing you it was hard for me to stay on target. I packed my stuff up by 10:30-11am and everyone else was not to far behind me. WE made it back in great time and wa able to play some Bocce Ball with my neighbors. Spending time away from the power grid it is tough to keep electronic devises such as phones and cameras charged. I will have review on a external battery pack I have been using coming up. It was a great shooting with friends being out in the middle of nowhere.

Looking Ahead

As the first quarter just passed it is time to look ahead to the 2017 hunting, fishing and outdoor season. With the upcoming release of the new California Department Fish and Wildlife Big Game Book at the end of April early May. I have already started planing for the 2017 season. I have a few spots from last year picked out that I need to get trail cameras set so my hunting partner and I  can scout other areas we have not spent as much time in.

Also just getting under way is the 2017 offshore fishing season. With it being only being the First week of April we already have some larger size Bluefin tuna showing up and lots of quality yellowtail. Not to mention great rock fishing going on locally. This season is looking great to get out on the water and chase some of these great grade fish. Yellowtail are great to pull on and put up a great fight and the large Bluefin pull like a freight train. I will go over what set-ups I use from fishing the beach to fishing multi-day trips offshore chasing big game.