daniel Posted December 18, 2018 Report Share Posted December 18, 2018 Has anyone found or tried powering the bag with a battery which can itself be recharged through USB? My NP1s are getting on a bit and aside from all the obvious advantages of the smart batteries (Hi-Q/EI) - I thought it would be nice to have less charger/s to carry about. The only thing I've found so far are these laptop powerbanks which can be recharged through the USB or the coax: https://www.xtpower.de/XT-20000QC2-PowerBank-modern-DC-/-USB-battery-with-20400mAh-5V-12V-to-24V https://www.xtpower.de/External-Charger Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vincent R. Posted December 18, 2018 Report Share Posted December 18, 2018 People do it, especially in the lower budget crowed, lets say the Zoom F series and Sound Devices Mix pre series users. Inside a NP1, Hi-Q, Vmount AND USB battery they are all the same; Lion Batteries, so that doesn't matter, unless of course they cheap out on the vendor. the connector, in your case an USB one is not the most ideal/monkey proof sollution though, so keep that in mind. Your linked USB powerbank has 12v out so no step up needed, thats good because that will give a couple of percentages loss. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mobilemike Posted December 18, 2018 Report Share Posted December 18, 2018 I tried it for awhile with one of my smaller bags. Honestly I found it more of a PITA than it was worth. I moved over to smart batteries and a BDS in that bag and haven't looked back. -Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daniel Posted December 19, 2018 Author Report Share Posted December 19, 2018 Obviously not a massive fan of non locking coax plugs, a Dtap O/P would have been ideal for me but I was thinking a DIY battery shoe could hold the elements together in durable way. Curious to know if the PITA was in the charging/plugs/other. I already have power distribution for my bag and I can buy 3 XT (75wh) units for the price of 1 Audioroot (98wh). I can charge all 3 in 9 hours via USB hub or I can buy/use XT AC adapters (c.€15) to charge in 3 hours. AR chargers cost £129 (single travel charger), £282 for 2 bay DT charger, £540 for 4 bay. I am sure the AR, Hi-Q, EI are all better, smarter more professional etc than XT (especially if you run X3 or R4+) but the attraction is more about the portability, redundancy and USB convenience of the XT than the price (£1/wh vs £3.5/wh). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Blankenship Posted December 19, 2018 Report Share Posted December 19, 2018 With lithium batteries, more than the cells matter. The protection circuits integrated within the power pack is of significance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yizhye20 Posted December 21, 2018 Report Share Posted December 21, 2018 I do use mophie power station ac for some cases. They do last really long Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mobilemike Posted December 21, 2018 Report Share Posted December 21, 2018 On 12/19/2018 at 4:18 AM, daniel said: Curious to know if the PITA was in the charging/plugs/other. All of the above, honestly. I used a battery pack that had both coax outputs for wireless receivers and a USB output for my MixPre. Neither was very reliable however, as neither connection was locking, and I had to use a rather convoluted set of adapters in order to make the coax output work with my Zaxcom receiver. I had an AA battery backup in the MixPre so that wouldn't lose power while recording, but I definitely had power fail on the wireless a couple of times. The batteries took forever to charge and did not seem to discharge reliably. Some days I would get 3 hours out of one, other days only an hour and a half. It also took a very figety set of steps to turn the battery on - everything had to be plugged in and booted on in a certain order and then the battery turned on. There was also no easy way to turn it off between takes to save power. I went over to the 49Wh Inspired Energy smart batteries after that. They are about the same size and weight as the USB battery I was using, so pretty small, but way more reliable and power the gear for far longer. A bit more expensive, but I'm willing to pay for reliability. -Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vincent R. Posted December 22, 2018 Report Share Posted December 22, 2018 20 hours ago, Mobilemike said: The batteries took forever to charge and did not seem to discharge reliably. Some days I would get 3 hours out of one, other days only an hour and a half. Sounds more like you used one of those run of the mill power banks with outrageous impossible claims of power. Or was it a reputable name brand? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattias Larsen Posted December 22, 2018 Report Share Posted December 22, 2018 I ran my mixpre of a usb battery for a while, but the connector was a bit unreliable and I moved to L batteries and it was a big step up in reliability. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daniel Posted January 6, 2019 Author Report Share Posted January 6, 2019 Just back from hols, thanks for the feedback. I'm on the same page as you all on the merits of pro batteries (I run Np1s and L batteries currently - excuse the pun). The ideal battery for travelling light would have a proper connector for output and a USB I/P for charging. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.