Rex-Creations
Pad-Pal V5.2, Batch 6 (Coming Jan 17th)
Pad-Pal V5.2, Batch 6 (Coming Jan 17th)
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Just know the timeline is up in the air at the moment as I troubleshoot a component lifespan issue. Too large a portion of the prototype motor control boards are not passing my longevity test rig for me to comfortably sell the V5.3 (My min design requirement is an average Triple Crown's worth of inflation cycles). Once the issue is known/solved, it will be another 2 months before I could get the first batch lined up. At best were looking at April for V5.3 maybe, at worst it could be towards the end of the hiking season in 2025. I should also mention I'm historically TERRIBLE at timeline estimates... so take all this talk of "when" with some grains of salt.
For those looking for the details planned on V5.3, check out "NOTE #3" towards the bottom of this page.
Please note that orders shipped outside of the US may be subject to import duties, taxes, and/or customs fees determined by the destination country. These charges are not included in the product price or shipping cost and are the responsibility of the buyer. I encourage you to consult with your local customs office for more information prior to placing your order if your not familiar with your home countries import policies.
What is it and who is it for?
I'd like to appropriately frame this because I fear people may get overly excited about the weight and expect all other aspects of the Pad-Pal to be just as impressive. And the last thing I want to do is make my fellow hikers feel like I wasted their money.
The Pad-Pal is a bare bones minimalist electric sleeping pad inflator designed to do about 95% of the work, leaving the last 1-2 puffs for the user to adjust to their desired firmness. The main demographic I had in mind when making these was a UL hiker who wouldn't otherwise consider carrying an electric inflator. I think the type of hikers who are already happy carrying the weight of existing inflators, and love them, may be disappointed by the compromises taken to get the Pad-Pal to sub 10 grams for most pad valves.
So if you're looking for a Zero Pump "killer", this really isn't it. But if you're looking for a super light way to take the hard work out of inflating a sleeping pad after pushing big miles that day, a light fan, or fire below/stoker, than this thing is through hiker gold :)
How Does it Work?
1. Attach the Pad-Pal to your sleeping pad's inflation valve using a dedicated valve adapter. (Check out the user guide for more information.)
2. Connect the Pad-Pal to your power bank via USB-C. The Pad-Pal will play a few tones to let you know it's powered up and ready to go.
3. Press the button on the face of the device to select one of four power settings and start inflating your pad. Easy as that!
Check out this video for a better understanding of how it works.
What's In the Box:
- 1 Pad-Pal
- 1 full set of pad adapters
Specifications:
- Weight: 9 grams / 0.32 Oz (with VA-1 thermarest winglock valve adapter)
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Power Consumption:
- 0.4 amps in mode 1
- 0.86 amps in mode 2
- 1.75 amps in mode 3
- 2.6 amps in mode 4
- Power Source: Power it via a USB-C equipped Phone or Power bank, also compatible with USB-A ports.
- How Much Power Does it Use? For reference, the Pad-Pal uses 30 mAh to inflate a Thermarest NeoAir Uberlite (size regular) sleeping pad on mode 4 (loudest and most inefficient), or 150 mWh. That's about 250 inflations from a 10,000 mAh battery bank. If you inflate once a day, after a week it will consume 2.7% of charge from a 10,000 mAh battery bank.
- Water Resistance: The Pad-Pal V5.2 can handle small amounts of splashes and short exposure to rain, but I recommend against submerging it. While it's more water-resistant than previous versions, it's not waterproof!
- Longevity: The V5.2 uses a brushless motor. In testing I've found them to last 1,800 inflation cycles — that's approximately 4 years of daily use! This can be extended by periodically adding a drop of sewing machine oil to the motor bushing on the bottom of the inflator.
Repairs:
Should anything go wrong, the Pad-Pal is user repairable! I plan offer every component for individual purchase so you can replace only what's needed as soon as I can! Stay tuned for upcoming videos and guides on diagnosing issues and performing repairs.- Tool-less user swappable components. Not that this was a needed feature, but the goal here is to make it as easy to repair for a thru-hiker on a town day (with no access to tools) as I can. Because the easier it is to repair, the more likely a hiker will do so instead of tossing it in the landfill and replacing it. Thus amortizing its impact over a longer service life... or so the idea goes. XD
- Reduce plastic mass in the design. I'm unfortunately locked into using PA12 plastic (pretty much a single-use plastic, almost impossible to recycle) at the moment and can't switch materials with my current resources (though I day dream about ways to use bamboo or PHA instead), so reducing the amount of PA12 being used is also on my wish list. My efforts here might mean it comes out slightly lighter/smaller than V5.2, but that's not a design goal I'm purposefully aiming for, so no promises.
- KITS: I want to offer a kit version too. So anyone with a 3D printer, or access to one, can make the main components themselves locally, and the only thing needing to burn jet fuel for delivery would be the motor/motor control board.
- Color options: Unrelated to the biosphere impact stuff, I'll be adding 2 color options. Pebble body with red button and black accents, or dark blue body with white button/accents
- It will lose the ability to put the adapter on the top and "deflate" a pad. But I never really advertise the deflation feature because it only works on a select few pads out there, and saying it "works" might be a generous statement if I'm being honest. It's just so much faster and easier to lay on your pad and let it deflate in my experience.
A Special THANKS!
I'd like to take a moment and recognize 2 people.
The first is Dennis Radermacher of Lightforge.
Dennis is an incredibly talented photographer who is way out of my price or skill range yet still was kind enough to let me use the photos he took while using a Beta version of the Pad-Pal out in NZ. (His photos are the three SUPER nice outdoorsy looking ones, please do not mistake my horrible attempt at an at home studio setup for his own work XD). Thank you Dennis!
The second person is Keith Miller, someone who you should probably thank too if you end up liking the Pad-Pal.
Keith Miller is an insanely talent and interdisciplinary engineer of the likes I have never met before. To top it off, he is also the nicest and most sincere individual I have ever known. It blows my mind such a person exist, even after considering there are 9 billion of us.
Keith first reached out to me at the very beginning of this project 2 years ago suggesting I pursue a brushless variant. I kept waving off his suggestions, then he finally convinced me when he basically showed off his own fully fledged plans for how a brushless variant could be done. We both started working on it right away. Keith went down the route of a custom ESC and I worked in parallel on a board that could trick an off the shelf ESC into doing the job. I figured this double approach would make it more likely at least one of them would work. I got the funky off the shelf + breakout board working first and that was the Beta V5 and V5.1 units. These however had reliability issues and were more time consuming and expensive to make.
Not long after that, Keith got a custom ESC working and showed it was possible. Then in stroke of kindness, and unprompted, he gifted me the schematic so I could start on my own variant of the custom ESC (it somehow still took me another 4 months to get mine working XD). Without Keith's work, I'm pretty sure the Pad-Pal would not be this good or maybe not even be here at all.
Keith is also working on some other epic projects right now that I think the community will absolutely love. Here is a link to his reddit write up of his custom star trackers, be sure to follow his account so you can see what amazing things he might have up his sleeve next! I happen to know what they are and think you will not be disappointed! :)
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