How do you keep your computer powered throughout the night?

[tdietsche]

Hi all,

I am new to somewhat serious astrophotography and have never had to power a laptop in the field before now. How do you go about doing this? Is there some type of battery pack that can be charged and used on site, and what would such a thing cost? I am going to be using an astrotrac with a camera/lens on a tripod hooked up to my laptop running PHD, which shouldn't drain the battery terribly fast, at least I wouldn't think. Is a low power setting on the laptop enough to run PHD? I always have it set to performance mode at home, but would like to extend the battery life for as long as possible, as I will have the opportunity to stay out all night several times in Utah this June:headbang:.

Thanks!

[Bizibilder]

I assume you mean using your laptop away from home and therefore away from a mains supply? If so then it is quite easy to buy an adapter that will allow you to run your laptop from a 12v battery. These are designed to run your laptop from a car cigarette lighter socket.

For mine I found one on Amazon - just make sure that you check both the voltage and wattage (mine was 18v, 65w if I remember correctly). Just be aware that your lappy will be pulling 3-4 amps so, for an all night session, you will need quite a beefy leisure type battery (especially if running your mount and other bits as well).

I wouldn't bother with the lappy's own battery pack - they don't really last very long, even when new!

[iwatkins]

I've got a 9 cell extended battery on my Samsung NC10 and replaced the standard harddisk with an SSD. This combination, fully charged, Wifi and Bluetooth switched off works very well.

I ran IC Capture capturing 10 second exposures from a DMK41 for five hours and still had around 25% battery remaining (screen mainly closed to preserve power).

If I use APT and my DSLR (I.e. laptop not powering the camera), I can do 4 hours non-stop and still have 50% battery. Again screen mostly off.

Cheers

Ian

[ianaiken]

In my dell I have a battery in the dvd tray as well as the main battery. I also have two spare main batteries should they be needed. I can remove the main batteries while keeping the laptop powered via the secondary battery (by removing it before its dead then using it only for exchanges). As it happens, I've never had to swap the batteries about yet.

[Rwetherell]

In my dell I have a battery in the dvd tray as well as the main battery. I also have two spare main batteries should they be needed. I can remove the main batteries while keeping the laptop powered via the secondary battery (by removing it before its dead then using it only for exchanges). As it happens, I've never had to swap the batteries about yet.

Ian - I'm in the market for a new laptop and that sounds great. Can you tell me what model/spec your Dell machine is?

[ianaiken]

It's a Dell Latitude D630. It's quite old but serves the purpose well since you can get spare batteries and stuff easy for it. It's a Core 2 Duo at 2.2GHz with 4GB Ram running 64bit Win 7. May be good looking on eBay and saving yourself a few pennies. The DVD battery I think was around £30. Just the fact that I can have a secondary is great as it means I can easily change the main (I could also plug it in too).

[pel]

Just a 64-bit warning, some of the old cameras such as the Canon 350d have driver issues on Windows 7 64-bit.

[tdietsche]

That battery setup sounds nice, but my Dell only has interchangeables through the back, so I would have to power off. Found a power pack on amazon that I'll be able to recharge during the day and run my laptop charger from it at night for $150. Will also come in handy for camping in the future. I'll have to remember to switch wifi and bluetooth off, but will probably forget:iamwithstupid:. I would love to go SSD, but don't have the money to do so right now, I need a new desktop instead. Thanks for the advice everyone!

[Star Gazer]

Correct me if I am wrong but I think that dell discontinued drive bay batteries two or three years ago. I think they wre a great idea but most people were unaware of them so they never really took off. shame

[iwatkins]

Real shame.

I used to love my old Latitude 630 and the battery setup. I think I had five batteries at one point and especially loved that you could hot swap them, press the little button on the actual battery to see what charge remained. Clever stuff but don't think anybody does it now

Cheers

Ian

[buzz]

I'm also searching for a laptop with good battery life... in another thread, several recommended the Samsung N10 and external battery packs. You could swap them out during standby.

I also found the Sony Vaio S series - which have a removable battery tray which is hot-swappable - allegedly taking you to 12 hours in stamina mode.

I currently own a macbook and found just today that there is an large external battery pack which will connect to the charge port. I'm just trying to find a site that will sell to the UK.

hope that helps.

[buzz]

Hi folks. For info I just did a back to back test of Win7 and OSX running Maxim/EQMOD and Nebulosity/PHD on an Apple powerbook. Booted as a PC, the battery did tracking and aquisition for 4.5 hours, with aggressive power management. As a Mac, it managed another hour. Since, I found a website on PC's which confirm the trend.

Just bought an external Gorilla lithium polymer power supply - on specs, it should double my laptop battery life. It has adaptors and switchable voltages for most laptops.

hope this helps

[squeaky]

I use a 75AH leisure battery (£65) and a 240v ac to 12v DC 4A inverter (£35) which will cover me for an entire weekend.

PLUS - any time I have a power cut at home I just get my kit out and run comp/tv/radio and a light until power comes back

And... when I change my laptop I won't need to update any additional batteries.

[buzz]

That's good to know, if a little heavy! Is it one of those batteries where you cannot really take it below 50% charge without affecting its life?

[squeaky]

Beats me, sorry. For the money I should think it would be on the good side. I'll have time to read the small print on the battery while waiting for the transit...

[E621Keith]

I used a smaller capacity (13000mah) version of this. http://www.amazon.co...C/ref=de_a_smtd

It kept my Thinkpad x200t powered for around 3.5 hrs before running out. At that point the laptop internal battery took over for the remaining part of the Venus transit.

I originally chose the 18000 but it didn't came with a tip for Thinkpad, so I returned it and got a smaller 13000. Its quite light and compact and can be charged from the mains while connected to your laptop.

[Enrico]

Not an expert, but I believe that "leisure" 12v batteries are deep cycle, and designed to be used a lot and certainly to go below 50% charge. I have a couple of old 12v car batteries which I use to power my goto scope and am looking at creating a 12v "array" to be charged by solar panels (at my local tip there are often loads of "dead" 12v car batteries which can normally be brought back to life with a good pulse-charger and some careful de-sulphating).

With this array I plan to power some garden lighting (for non astro nights) and my scope/computer when I am allowed...

[buzz]

It's good that you are recycling lead products. I'm not totally sure about Lithium toxicity, but if possible I try to avoid lead and cadmium products. What do you need to do to bring them back to life?

Chris

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Regards

Chris

[E621Keith]

Lithium battery isn't toxic like lead or cadmium, but they do have a tendency of busting into flame and exploding if damaged.

[Enrico]

@buzz - first I try my battery charger; it is one which is a conditioner/maintainer (by Ring I think, would have to check). Sometimes it reports that the battery is too sulphated. On occasion, just leaving it there pulsing for a couple of days brings the battery back to life (the pulses of charge somehow desulphate the plates in the battery).

There are plenty of how-to guide on the web, and YouTube, on bringing back to life dead batteries (some of them involving welding equipment!).

[Enrico]

@buzz - my charger is a "ctek zafir 90". In my view it's brilliant. I bought it originally to maintain a battery on a little used car (it can be safely left attached to the battery for long periods), but it has since been used to give a second lease of life to batteries from cars, bikes and a lawnmower!

[Phil Fargaze]

I have also made use of a 12v car battery. It has suffered a few deep cycles but still works well. Over the course of a weekend camping I have been able to power my HEQ5 mount, camera and laptop with the help of a solar charger during the day.

[buzz]

I had another thought - with imaging, the files are written to the hard drive every 5 minutes of so. Even if the drives are powering down inbetween, it's wasting energy. I reckon, if I put a 8Gb class 10 SD card in my laptop and use that for storing files, it will not need to fire up the hard drive. (A lot cheaper than investing in a SSD drive)

regards Chris

[icrusoe]

I recently built an ebike, 100v 10ah lithium polymer http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__16207__Turnigy_5000mAh_6S_20C_Lipo_Pack_USA_Warehouse_.html, 24s2p, for a total of 8 batteries. I reconfigure the packs into 40000ah at 22.2 volts and then use a dc-dc inverter to drop the voltage down to 12v. I've never ran out of juice, heck, I could probably run for at least 1 day straight. And all 8 batteries weigh 15lbs - perfect for a backpack!

[Highflight]

I assume you mean using your laptop away from home and therefore away from a mains supply? If so then it is quite easy to buy an adapter that will allow you to run your laptop from a 12v battery. These are designed to run your laptop from a car cigarette lighter socket.

For mine I found one on Amazon - just make sure that you check both the voltage and wattage (mine was 18v, 65w if I remember correctly). Just be aware that your lappy will be pulling 3-4 amps so, for an all night session, you will need quite a beefy leisure type battery (especially if running your mount and other bits as well).

I wouldn't bother with the lappy's own battery pack - they don't really last very long, even when new!

Hi Bizibilder. You wouldn't happen to know what that adapter is called, would you? I've looked on Amazon but there are so many different ones I don't know which one to get.

Thanks, Chris.