Power in the field

[TheMrGecko]

How do you guys power your mounts, I have just upgraded to a very power hungry mount. a battery pack that lasted me almost a year is now gobbled up in 4 hours by my new setup. This isn't a problem when I'm in the garden as I have AC leads but if I go out someplace remote how will I power it? is using a car socket okay? will it drain my battery if the car is ticking over? Don't want to be suck in the middle of nowhere with a flat car battery. Has anyone had experience with this?

[Davey-T]

Lot's of DIY power boxes in the appropriate section.

Basically you have the choice of a leisure battery 80ah or so or if you want light weight a Tracer LifPo battery.

Dave

[Luna-tic]

What mount did you get that eats so much battery power? I'm using a Stanley 450 amp "Instant Starter" battery pack. It's made for starting your car when the battery gets low, has jumper cables, even a small air compressor to fill a flat tire (might take a while, though). It has both cigarette lighter and USB power ports. I can run my AVX, a corrector and EP heater all night long for at least two nights (most I've tried so far) and the battery indicator still shows 2/3 charge. The unit plugs into household current to recharge. I only paid about $35 USD a couple of years ago for it. There are several sizes available with more available power and extra USB/lighter sockets. Mine looks like this one, the newer models are somewhat different but you can get one twice the power of mine for about $100USD

 

[TheMrGecko]

Its a heq5, and my old battery pack is just 4 D batteries. I will look into buying a jumper pack. thankyou