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Power pack options

pragmatist

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brantuk

brantuk

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Interesting post - those 5in1's seem to vary a lot in longevitiy. I've had mine over three years and it can still run a mount all night. However I do put dew control on a separate power pack (or ehu) and I do keep my batteries topped up with charge every month or two when not in use - and after every session when in use - this makes a big difference to how long it lasts.

The battery recommended above does look good - and at 40ah it should last all night doing what you want it to do with ease. If it's too dear then an alternative is a leisure/marine battery, or caravan battery (circa 80ah-110ah for £80'ish) - but they are heavy being the older design. :)

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pragmatist

pragmatist

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The Sherwood's astro power station looks interesting but that lion battery is incredibly expensive so I am still open to suggestions.

Yes I have heard that power packs do vary, you can be lucky or incredibly unlucky and get one which has been sitting in a warehouse for a long time or that's what I heard. I always kept mine topped up, not overcharged and it still died after a very short time indeed.

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Davey-T

Davey-T

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Interesting post - those 5in1's seem to vary a lot in longevitiy. I've had mine over three years and it can still run a mount all night. However I do put dew control on a separate power pack (or ehu) and I do keep my batteries topped up with charge every month or two when not in use - and after every session when in use - this makes a big difference to how long it lasts.

The battery recommended above does look good - and at 40ah it should last all night doing what you want it to do with ease. If it's too dear then an alternative is a leisure/marine battery, or caravan battery (circa 80ah-110ah for £80'ish) - but they are heavy being the older design. :)

I use mine (40ah Li-ion) with mount, dew heaters, cameras and laptop plugged in  and it hardly makes a dent in it, recharges in minutes with supplied 10ah charger (also expensive),and weighs no more than the original 17ah battery.

PS I think the 17ah rating  was a bit of wishfull thinking by someone in China :)

Dave

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Davey-T

Davey-T

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The Sherwood's astro power station looks interesting but that lion battery is incredibly expensive so I am still open to suggestions.

Yes I have heard that power packs do vary, you can be lucky or incredibly unlucky and get one which has been sitting in a warehouse for a long time or that's what I heard. I always kept mine topped up, not overcharged and it still died after a very short time indeed.

Have you still got the receipt, you could try taking it back as " not fit for use " Imagine how long it would last if you actually tried to jump start your car :)

Dave

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pragmatist

pragmatist

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I use mine (40ah Li-ion) with mount, dew heaters, cameras and laptop plugged in  and it hardly makes a dent in it, recharges in minutes with supplied 10ah charger (also expensive),and weighs no more than the original 17ah battery.

PS I think the 17ah rating  was a bit of wishfull thinking by someone in China :)

Dave

Did you take apart a power pack to fit your battery into. Just looks that way in the photo. I guess that saves having to buy the 12v ports.

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Davey-T

Davey-T

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Did you take apart a power pack to fit your battery into. Just looks that way in the photo. I guess that saves having to buy the 12v ports.

Yes, just a Maplin power pack, chucked the original battery and fitted the L-ion one, bit of a squeeze so had to butcher the inside of the case a bit and bin the tyre pump.

Also put red foil behind light, swapped out cig sockets and fitted amp volt meter.

Pic's of finished article  

post-21198-0-70294800-1388420018_thumb.j  post-21198-0-43009200-1388420024_thumb.j

Dave

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bomberbaz

bomberbaz

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The lithiom batteries are very exoensive and lead acid usualky too heavy. But just found these little felas. Going to check out my own power pack case tomorrow, its not 40ah but 20ah is a 30% step up on my 14ah for a rwasonable price.

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brantuk

brantuk

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Yup the Lucas golf trolley battery is great - I got one just a month or two ago and so far no probs with it. I'm only using it for dew control on a manual dob. It's much easier to fit on the turntable base being smaller than most powerpacks. I got the 22ah one from Tayna batteries who also do a great charger for it. :)

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Davey-T

Davey-T

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Those Tracer batteries look good but quite expensive and not sure how long they last. Charging not a problem as i have a good intelligent charger which i use for my R/C heli li-po batteries.

Do you mean in recharges , years or hours ?

Another good thing about LI-ion batteries other than the weight is the discharge curve which means voltage is maintained rather than gradually decreasing. I've got a couple of Li-ion drills which keep going then suddenly stop ( blooming annoying when you're up a ladder and need it to keep going for another thirty seconds)

Dave

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pragmatist

pragmatist

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[quote name="Davey-T". I've got a couple of Li-ion drills which keep going then suddenly stop ( blooming annoying when you're up a ladder and need it to keep going for another thirty seconds)

Dave

ha, Yep, been there and done that Davey.

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jonathan

jonathan

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I got so far in swapping out the battery in my exact same orange 5-in-1 but seemed to be waiting forever for a 'new model' battery to be released by the manufacturer I had pinpointed as the best price and performance, eventually gave up and went for a big leisure battery in a B&Q wheeled tool trolly.

Thought about fitting volt and ammeters too, but for some reason failed to find ones suitable.  Sadly it still haunts me as an unfinished project, leisure battery is heavy, big, but it works very well and is very simple to hook up - just two croc clips, inline fuse and female auto socket, my dew heater controller plugs into that and everything else plugs into the dew heater (Hi-Tec Astro, it has four dew tape ports and two aux power sockets).  I don't use a laptop or camera, only the mount and dew heaters.

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