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New Power Tanks

stuffedhaggis

By stuffedhaggis
in Discussions - Mounts

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IanL

IanL

Posted
Posted

Have to agree. You can spend well north of a hundred quid on a basic 17AH power tank which is literally a car jump starter with some astro manufacturers name printed on it. 

Or you could buy a 20AH Lucas Golf Buggy sealed battery plus an intelligent charger, a small plastic tool box and a few fused connectors and sockets from eBay for slightly more than half that at a similar weight.

The key is to go for a deep cycle type battery not a regular car or motorbike battery for best performance and longer lifespan.

Of course if you need something lighter then you would have to shell out a fair amount for one of the lithium units on the market.

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stuffedhaggis

stuffedhaggis

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Posted
4 minutes ago, MarsG76 said:

I use a stock standard 900Amp (10Ah equivalent) car jump starter and it easily last the whole night of observing... and it only cost me AUD$60... whats that in pounds, about £23? 

 

My issue there is I have been through 4 of these in at least 2 years. So the cost adds up. 

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IanL

IanL

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, stuffedhaggis said:

My issue there is I have been through 4 of these in at least 2 years. So the cost adds up. 

Yep, car batteries and jump starters are designed to provide a lot of current over a short period and repeated cycles of long, slow discharge will kill them quickly.

That's why you need one designed for golf buggies, mobility scooters, leisure batteries and the like which will have a much longer lifespan for the type of use we put them to.

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Geoff Lister

Geoff Lister

Posted
Posted

Mine is over 6 years old and works fine. The mains power brick is permanently connected through a plug-in timer and gets about 30 minutes "ON" per day, the charging monitor in the main unit controlling the actual charge duration, as required. The battery in my car is over 10 years old, and with the slow discharge caused by the security features, I find it almost flat if the car is not used for about 3 weeks. If I am going away on holiday, I leave the jumper pack connected across the car's battery, and the 30 minutes charge keeps both batteries happy.

Geoff

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RayD

RayD

Posted
Posted

You need to consider a few things with portable power packs:

  1. How much lugging and carting are you going to or want to do
  2. How long do you want it to last
  3. How are you likely to be able to charge it
  4. How much do you want to spend

As noted by @IanL starter batteries are simply not designed to be deep discharged, so if you do you shorten their life considerably.  If you don't, so have one with tons of spare capacity, and then charge fairly quickly after discharge, then they can last a long time.  Deep cycle batteries, such as those in golf carts, buggies and leisure vehicles etc. are designed to be discharged fairly regularly to their maximum depth of discharge, which is typically 80%.

I think if you have a budget of £150, then forget the starter type units, they're just not designed for the job (although will work so I'm not chastising those that do use them).  

The Celestron type power tanks are the next step up to the car starters as, whilst they look fairly similar, they do at least have SLA or gel type deep cycle batteries.  Note though  with the SLA batteries you do really need to have a very strict charging regime to get maximum potential from them, and ideally a proper optimiser if not using them for extended periods as it will keep them on a low current float charge.

If you can afford one of the Tracer type LiPo (or LiFePO4 if possible as the have significantly more life cycles), then they are well worth a look.  I have a small LiPo unit from Amazon which works surprisingly well, but also a home made 33Ah battery box unit with a deep cycle mobility scooter battery.  Both are great, and depending what I'm doing I'll use either.  The benefit of the LiPo is the very low self-discharge rate, meaning I can switch it on after 2 months and it is still at 99% odd.

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Hadron

Hadron

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This is my solution. It’s an 85ah leisure battery with a crude but effective dual cigar socket and 3pin 12v outlet combined with a 400w 240v inverter and 4 usb charge points. The inverter cost in the region of £35 and is obviously dependent on your requirements and the 12v outlet was made using spares I had lying around so effectively free. The battery was (if I remember correctly) about £60 plus vat leaving you a reasonable amount of your budget to spare :icon_biggrin:

 

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RayD

RayD

Posted
Posted
6 minutes ago, Hadron said:

 

This is my solution. It’s an 85ah leisure battery with a crude but effective dual cigar socket and 3pin 12v outlet combined with a 400w 240v inverter and 4 usb charge points. The inverter cost in the region of £35 and is obviously dependent on your requirements and the 12v outlet was made using spares I had lying around so effectively free. The battery was (if I remember correctly) about £60 plus vat leaving you a reasonable amount of your budget to spare :icon_biggrin:

 

Ideal.  Simple but effective :thumbright:

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