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Possible 130wh (8800mAh) DIY Bag Power for Cheap


benr

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I'm thinking I might just try one wired to a 4pin hirose and plug it directly into my nomad. Anyone see any issues with this? Even at the batteries max voltage I read somewhere from glenn that the nomad is ok to see 10-18V so i assume ill be ok.

If the SD gear works okay with setups like this, I cant see why the Zaxcom wouldnt.

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Got a response back from AlienBees on the two questions about the battery and chrager:

Does the battery itself have a built in low voltage cutoff or is it in the VML inverter only?

Also does the VML AC charger when plugged directly into the battery trickle charge after charging is complete or does it shut off completely?

Thanks,

cleardot.gif

-Ben

Hey Ben,

Thanks for contacting us! The battery does have a cutoff point at 11V DC. The battery also does not trickle charge, it will shut off from the battery to the charger once it is charged to full J Let us know if you need anything else!

Tasha

Customer Service

Paul C. Buff Inc.

1-800-443-5542

Check out our new forum! http://www.paulcbuff-techforum.com

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Also been looking at using Lithium Polymer or LiFe batteries as I have a bunch for radio controlled planes and the things are cheap and have great energy density. All the packs I have seen for radio control use all have a balance port so the cells can be balanced but none I have seen have any low voltage cut-off. Going below around 3.5Volts per cell does harm the LiPo batteries and if they get below 3 volts per cell they will usually not recover at all. These LiFe packs have PCBs that prevent overcharging/discharging, but lack balance connectors:

http://www.batteryspace.com/12-8v-lifepo4-battery-packs-from-3.3ah-to-6ah.aspx

This company makes low voltage cut offs for Lipo batteries:

http://www.draganfly.com/DF-DIV-BATTCUT--draganeye-battery-cable-3cell-lipo-cutoff.php5

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I ordered 2 of these batteries and should have them tommorow. Ill put them through their paces and let you all know what i find.

Man, youre on it! Cant wait to hear your findings. I already have two of them, but I still havent ordered the Anderson plugs or Hirose connector. Im slacking here.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I took your advice and ordered them as well as my hirose connectors from mouser. Will hsve it all assembled by saturday im still in vegas until tommorow.

Any update? Im getting ready to place my order from Mouser for the parts to make the cable. Thinking Im going to go with the all metal HiRose connector LINK, which one did you go with? Also did you order your wire from Mouser too? Thinking Im just going to use some two conductor 16AWG speaker wire.

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You will have a real treat trying to stuff 16ga into a Hirose... The solder cups are really designed for something closer to 26ga.

Hmmm... Well the Anderson connectors recommend 16AWG/20AWG, so maybe Ill try the 20AWG then... Thanks for the heads up!

EDIT:

Yea I see that you are quite correct:

http://www.hirose-connectors.com/connectors/H205SeriesGaiyou.aspx?c1=HR10&c3=3

They recommend 26AWG max. So, I guess Ill have to use 26AWG and then solder the Anderson connector pins on to the thinner wire.

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Update!

I have been using these now for about 2weeks and have had a decent experience. I am plugging directly into my nomad 8 and it works great. The nomad is reading about 16.5v fully charged and dies at about 12v (according to the nomad display) this is why i say decent but not great. When thr nomad stops taking power from the battery at about 12v a voltmeter will read the battery at about 13.3v and even then the nomad in theory can take as little as 8v but obviously doesnt. Now this might be a nomad issue but i think its worth noting.

I can get a solid day and a half off of one charge its not too heavy and fits in the back of my pegz1 fine. The cheap charger does a good job, charges full in about 4 hours and turns off when done. Does'nt seem to get war or anything. I think it would b e tough to beat the value of these.

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Update!

I have been using these now for about 2weeks and have had a decent experience. I am plugging directly into my nomad 8 and it works great. The nomad is reading about 16.5v fully charged and dies at about 12v (according to the nomad display) this is why i say decent but not great. When thr nomad stops taking power from the battery at about 12v a voltmeter will read the battery at about 13.3v and even then the nomad in theory can take as little as 8v but obviously doesnt. Now this might be a nomad issue but i think its worth noting.

When you say it cuts off, do you mean the battery or Nomad? I'd say this is a function of the LVC in the battery, under load it would be dipping to 12V, which would shut it down, then when you take the load away it 'releases', and goes back to 13.3v on your meter.

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Update!

I have been using these now for about 2weeks and have had a decent experience. I am plugging directly into my nomad 8 and it works great. The nomad is reading about 16.5v fully charged and dies at about 12v (according to the nomad display) this is why i say decent but not great. When thr nomad stops taking power from the battery at about 12v a voltmeter will read the battery at about 13.3v and even then the nomad in theory can take as little as 8v but obviously doesnt. Now this might be a nomad issue but i think its worth noting.

I can get a solid day and a half off of one charge its not too heavy and fits in the back of my pegz1 fine. The cheap charger does a good job, charges full in about 4 hours and turns off when done. Does'nt seem to get war or anything. I think it would b e tough to beat the value of these.

Any chance you could post a pic of the cable(s) you made? What gauge wire did you use?

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Ill get a pic up tommorow. I beleive my wire is 20 or 22. I used some heavy duty gepco xlr cable i had laying around. Ill check the guage tommoroe as well.

The only reason i dont think its the lvc us because the nomad says voltage while tje battery is under load and cuts off at about 12.3v the lvc on the batt is 11v so im not sure where the 1.3v discrepency is because 1.3v is a solid 4 hours of battery.

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  • 2 months later...

Paul Buff?? This guy's been a contributing innovator in the recording scene since early surf music.

From Wikipedia: "Paul Buff engineered the original demo recording of Pipeline by The Chantays and Wipe Out by The Surfaris using his unique custom built recording machine, which recorded 5 tracks on 1/2 inch recording tape. Buff went on to invent the Kepex, an acronym for KEyable Program EXpander (the opposite of an audio compressor). Paul Buff's Alison Research studio products became common on pop recordings (Alan Parsons would use a Kepexed drum sound to create the 'heartbeat' heard on Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon.)"

"Pal Recording Studio (1957-1964) was an independent recording studio that operated in Cucamonga, California (now known as Rancho Cucamonga.) The studio was started by engineer/innovator Paul Buff. The studio is known for its instrumental Surf music recordings like Wipeout and the original demo recording of Pipeline. The original location was at 8020 North Archibald Avenue. The studio later moved down the street to 8040 North Archibald Avenue.

Pal was also the training ground for a young Frank Zappa who worked at the studio starting in 1961. Zappa learned basic recording techniques at Pal. He recorded his first rock n' roll record, Breaktime, by The Masters, which consisted of himself, Paul Buff, and Ronnie Williams. In 1964, Zappa bought the studio and re-named it Studio Z. Zappa lived at the studio building for a few months before it was closed in 1964. The building had to be torn down in order to widen North Archibald Avenue.

Zappa made many other recordings at the studio. Some were released on small Los Angeles based record companies, such as Original Sound. Other recordings were kept in his vault and released later on albums such as Lumpy Gravy (1967), Mystery Disc (1985), The Lost Episodes (1995), and Cucamonga (1998)."

Now back to the original topic maybe still in progress...

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Huh, never would have guessed that about Paul C. Buff.

And yes, sadly it is "still in progress". I got on to other projects and never got around to ordering the parts I needed to finished this one. Just another fine example of my scatter brained mind. I will eventually get to it though and when I do Ill be sure to post back.

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  • 1 month later...

I would consider weight (65-70W NP-1 are 480 grams) and charging time in the equation. Here we don't always have proper turn-around time to sleep.

And also how rugged are the connections at the weakest point. Those connectors in the battery... I wouldn't consider them location friendly...

For me 6 hours max charging time it's fine. 4 ideal, but only if the charger stands being on for 6-8 hours often.

It's also important to see if it's OK to have the battery on the charger for 8 hours on a regular basis. Some chargers will burn.

thanks for sharing your findings

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>how do I wire this up to split the source so that I can power both a 702 and 302 from the same battery

The more rugged the better. So you can make a sturdy little box with the connectors in it or use a BDS from Remote Audio (or get inspired by it)

You could also use an XLR4 break-away Y: XLR4 female to your battery and an XLR4 male with two cables from it to your devices.

And have spares of both always with you.

A well made box is always better/safer if you are dragging considerable power from the battery, I'd say

But if your XLR4 Y is properly soldered and you use adequate cable etc. it's fine.

In the box you can include a fuse and two diodes to protect you equipment. With appropriate wattage diodes you'll protect against inverted polarity, since the connector on that battery looks like it can be connected both ways...

In the XLR4 system you could include at least the diodes in the female XLR4 at the battery side.

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  • 3 months later...

(bump for pics of the connector/cable)

I've been using the complete Minis (yes, with DC-AC inverter) for all kinds of stuff, including running plugging in the SD AC-DC adapter to run my SD 442. I've only recently begun thinking about connecting the battery pack directly to the 442 and/or 744T; I figure there's a lot of efficiency, not to mention weight to be gained by skipping the DC > AC > DC conversion.

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  • 9 months later...
  • 1 month later...

I actually JUST got the Anderson connectors and the terminals and the Anderson crimping tool delivered not too long ago. So short of picking the "perfect" wire to use, I have everything I need to finally make this cable except for the HiRose connector. Im putting together an order in the best few days to Digikey so Ill add a couple of the HiRose connectors on there as well and post back when I have that in stock and get a chance to put it all together.

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  • 3 weeks later...

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