What is the ultimate power set up for both at home and portable

[Quetzalcoatl72]

As my hobby grows I've started to notice just how many things you need to give power to in sessions. I mostly set up in my garden, I have my laptop and mount powered from an extension. I try to power my camera fan and dew heater but the skywatcher power tank cannot handle that and dies within an hour. What adaptors do I need to power those two?

Secondly on the rare occasion I go out somewhere I'd like to take everything, how am I going to power my mount, laptop, dew heater and camera fan to last a good few hours each time? Laptop batteries in my experience are useless and can never last more than 2 hours at most. I use a leisure battery to power my mount but unfortunately it can't be fully trusted as a cig lighter with croc clips to socket isn't stable, I had to squeeze them together and tie with duct tape

[jambouk]

If going away from home where there is no mains power then you need batteries. Leisure batteries are best, but heavy. Work out how many watts everything needs per hour of use. Work out how many hours you want it to last for. Then I would double that number, and then ideally double that number again. That is the size of the battery you need. 
 

you need to work out how to make your connections more stable. Unreliable power supply is not acceptable. 

[Clarkey]

I agree about the leisure battery. I have a 110 amp hour battery with a case I built myself which has 12v and USB outputs etc. It will run my full imaging rig for a 12 hour session without problem - but it is very heavy. I use a small collapsible trolley to move it around.

With regards to the laptop, I will get at least 4 hours from mine and once up and running with the screen off probably nearer 6. I also have a lithium laptop specific power pack which will double the battery life and supplies 19V directly.

Krisdonia Laptop Power Bank 25000mAh Portable Charger with Type-C Port + DC Port + Dual USB (QC3.0 Quick Charge) for Laptop, Tablet, Cell phone, Macbook, Camera, Projector and more: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics

If you are only getting a couple of hours I would look for a new laptop. It only needs to be a low spec to run imaging kit and a smaller processor will use less power. I picked up a second hand Lenovo for £100 which works fine.

[blameTECHIE]

110Ah leisure battery is on my list of things for when I start going out and need a supply, with that in mind I've switched from a laptop to a miniPC that runs off 12V so removes the complexity of needing an invertor or drain of powering a screen.

Scope/plan setup is done with a direct connection to the miniPC from a laptop, make sure everything looks okay (PA, focus etc) and let it go, then switch the laptop off, just reconnecting periodically to make sure everything looks okay (maybe 2-3mins every hour) so the laptop battery is perfectly good for that.

The lightbulb moment for me was seeing a comment saying that "you're only capturing the data, not manipulating/post-processing it on the capture device" so it can be low-power just with good storage.

[Quetzalcoatl72]

On 03/06/2021 at 08:43, Clarkey said:

I agree about the leisure battery. I have a 110 amp hour battery with a case I built myself which has 12v and USB outputs etc. It will run my full imaging rig for a 12 hour session without problem - but it is very heavy. I use a small collapsible trolley to move it around.

With regards to the laptop, I will get at least 4 hours from mine and once up and running with the screen off probably nearer 6. I also have a lithium laptop specific power pack which will double the battery life and supplies 19V directly.

Krisdonia Laptop Power Bank 25000mAh Portable Charger with Type-C Port + DC Port + Dual USB (QC3.0 Quick Charge) for Laptop, Tablet, Cell phone, Macbook, Camera, Projector and more: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics

If you are only getting a couple of hours I would look for a new laptop. It only needs to be a low spec to run imaging kit and a smaller processor will use less power. I picked up a second hand Lenovo for £100 which works fine.

Didn't know anyone replied to this, but anyway thanks, I have a deep cycle leisure battery but it's 75amps, only used it to power the mount, lasts about 3 hours then it drops below 12v at half bar, it has liquid cells not gel. The connectors are awkward huge stumps so I can't use those rings everyone seems to use.

[Quetzalcoatl72]

On 03/06/2021 at 07:57, jambouk said:

If going away from home where there is no mains power then you need batteries. Leisure batteries are best, but heavy. Work out how many watts everything needs per hour of use. Work out how many hours you want it to last for. Then I would double that number, and then ideally double that number again. That is the size of the battery you need. 
 

you need to work out how to make your connections more stable. Unreliable power supply is not acceptable. 

my leisure battery has huge stumps for connectors so they aren't 100% secure because I'm using large croc clips attached to cig lighter. I'm looking at my equipment and I don't know what they output, how would I know? tried looking up my neq6 mount and it says 5a, the dew controller I have is 10a I think? what is that more its only heating up something, Do i count the cig cables and an output source too?

[Clarkey]

Although they quote these figures they will be peak loads. In reality when tracking the mount probably draws about an amp or 2. Again the dew heater controller can probably peak at 10 amps, but most dew heaters probably only draw about an amp at 12V. A bit more for other bits and pieces, but I doubt if your set up draws more than about 5 amps on average. (I've just got a new power supply for my kit with an ammeter built it so I will know for sure soon). With this in mind, if you want 8 hours worth of power you want 8x5amp=40 Amp hour. Ideally you probably want double this to prevent battery damage. There are lithium options, but the cost of these is pretty steep.

To connect to the leisure battery you could use metal hose clips - these will give you a good connection to the battery.

[Quetzalcoatl72]

8 minutes ago, Clarkey said:

Although they quote these figures they will be peak loads. In reality when tracking the mount probably draws about an amp or 2. Again the dew heater controller can probably peak at 10 amps, but most dew heaters probably only draw about an amp at 12V. A bit more for other bits and pieces, but I doubt if your set up draws more than about 5 amps on average. (I've just got a new power supply for my kit with an ammeter built it so I will know for sure soon). With this in mind, if you want 8 hours worth of power you want 8x5amp=40 Amp hour. Ideally you probably want double this to prevent battery damage. There are lithium options, but the cost of these is pretty steep.

To connect to the leisure battery you could use metal hose clips - these will give you a good connection to the battery.

I think on maximum I'm out 3 hours because I'm not the one driving on location, come to think of it, will I even need a dew heater for that short of time? could depend on time of year I guess.

[Quetzalcoatl72]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/ALLPOWERS-Portable-Generator-Emergency-Technology/dp/B081DSC1HD/ref=pd_rhf_gw_p_img_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=KJEGPKJZJYAVDYJ5BHD2 was looking into this one, that is quite a lot of wattage