Heated jackets

[grenfell]

Interesting replies. I did wonder about the durability of the wiring in such a garment specifically when used in a manual job situation. It does of course require it's own charger and battery , perhaps slightly less of an issue if one is using tools that take the same batteries although it still means a battery less for those tools making a jacket battery pretty much essential.
As I said I'd not heard of these or seen one although many years ago my father came home from the tip with a heated flying suit . It was rated at 24v but we could never get it to work and if we had I'm not sure about the practicalities of lugging around two car batteries.
As we seem to have dipped into army surplus I must say I seen military jackets worn quite commonly although perhaps not as much as trousers. Personally I have a small collection of East German stuff and do sometimes wear a jacket or trousers in the strictarn pattern. I probably do look like one of those Cold War rejects although I'm not sure many people even recognise it as camo , and even some "experts" argue over whether it actually is. I do have some DPM , my foul weather suit gets an outing every so often at work, but tend to shy away from current military patterns. I use an air soft forum and sometimes it's interesting reading people's joy at finding a particular Russian or Eastern European camo . The older wool stuff minus the badges is generally muted one colour garments and probably wouldn't stand out quite as much as the latest multicam and as I said in another thread older , rarer military items can serve both as a warm piece of clothing and may even become a collectible in its own right . I know I've seen the East German stuff go up in price although it's still affordable.

[Mortblanc]

Cool. I think Mortblanc makes clothing from wool blankets too.

You could have the best of both worlds, add a heater pack to one of them and it could be the bits.

Oh yes, I have been dealing with construction of coats from wool for many years as part of my reenactment work. Warm and cozy coats, cloaks, capes and matchcoats.

But for use in the modern world as soon as they perfect these battery powered clothes I will plug in with the rest.

I feel that the battery industry has let us down badly in the past 50 years. We have I phones with more computing power than NASA had on the first moon shot but we are still at the mercy of the D-cell battery that has not changed or improved much in 4 generations.

We should be able to wear electric clothing and recharge the batteries using a solar panel in our caps by now!

And as a resident of the southern US I am still waiting on air conditioned bloomers.

[grenfell]

I'm assuming when it was mentioned that you make clothes from wooden blankets it actually means wooden cloth rather than blanket material? I too make clothes for re-enactment and use wool and linens. Some wool can be really fine and can almost be mistaken for linen. I don't tend to use blanket material for clothes as it's generally too coarse although I did make one exception and that was for a monks habit. It doesn't get used much except on those rare occasions when a newbi really really wants to come along but hasn't any kit. It's probably not the most comfortable thing to wear but it does go to prove their commitment. Funnily enough we did ,a few seasons ago, have a serving vicar in the group and he made his own habit although the quality of the cloth was somewhat better than blanket.

[Mortblanc]

Some of the presentations I do require a fine cloth but many of them are for the presentation of the life of the common people and they did not have posh fabric and were lucky if they could find an old blanket to hang on their shoulders.

I use whatever the presentation requires for accuracy.

But I use it for a weekend now and then for event presentation. For sitting on a frozen stump during deer season or for getting a job done outside when the temps are brutal I use quilted down, Gortex, Thinsilite, felt liners in the Wellies and any other modern material that will keep me warm.

If I could figure a way to plug that electric coat into a tree stump I would have it on!

[rik_uk3]

USB heated jackets, gloves and socks have their place so long as you have a reliable recharge system...a nice little luxury.

I've picked up heated socks, each come with a 2000mAh power back fits nicely in a pouch on the sock. On low heat (which is enough) I get 4.5 hours of use.

I love gadgets and technology so I like playing with new gizmos but in reality I'll stick with high quality clothing/footwear.

Rab down jacket weather today

[berbie]

USB heated jackets, gloves and socks have their place so long as you have a reliable recharge system...a nice little luxury.

I've picked up heated socks, each come with a 2000mAh power back fits nicely in a pouch on the sock. On low heat (which is enough) I get 4.5 hours of use.

I love gadgets and technology so I like playing with new gizmos but in reality I'll stick with high quality clothing/footwear.

Rab down jacket weather today

I am outside daily from around 6 am through to at least midday, and today it was bitter! According to my car it was minus 7 as I left the house. A couple of weeks ago I bought a heated gilet from Amazon for £30.00 as the heated socks just weren't enough and I suspected worse was coming weatherwise.
Coupled with my Belkin powerbank (no powerbank supplied), I can honestly say that at times I was too hot today. Obviously I was wearing cold-weather gear as well but it was a game-changer. Three settings, so I could have turned it down. I switched it off for two hours between 12-2 as I was in the house and then took the dog out for an hour in luxurious warmth.
Belkin powerbank still had power-not sure how much, but it was still going and I'm convinced that had I turned it down when I was hot, it would have lasted much longer.
If I was skint but had three power banks I reckon that I could stay warm all day without the heating on in the house with the gilet and electric socks.
It surprised me because I wasn't expecting much for £30 when the prices range up to £150.00+