Battery charges on the go

[flightsimulation]

Hey guys i will be driving up a mountain how do you guys charge your batteries on the go, when no plug available?

Are you using a generator or your car battery?

 

[Thomas B]

Car battery, only when motor is running, via power port inside.... looks like an old cigarette lighter hole.

 

[flightsimulation]

Nothing better than that, car needs to run for over an hour and with its lower voltage must take even longer.
Must charge slowly compared to electricity.

 

[Deleted member 94047]

If you can still get it and if it is not too pricey for your use case, the Smatree portable charging station is the perfect solution. Charges three batteries simultaneously to full in about 40 minutes. Otherwise, carcharger is the next ideal solution.

 

[NOLADG]

Personally, I thought a better investment was a small pure sine-wave inverter for my car. I purchased one for $45 with a 300 watt output so it has the power to charge many small things at a time. And when I get a new drone/device I don't have to purchase another charger and items charge as quickly as they do at "home". It has been very handy in more ways than charging my drone. A few notes:

• Getting a pure sine-wave inverter produces much cleaner electricity than the modified-sine wave. Some items can be negatively effected by the cheaper models. Spend the extra $ for assurance.
• Units that plug into a cigarette lighter are limited by the output of the plug. ie 12v x 10a = 120 watts. My unit has a cigarette plug and a direct battery connect and forewarns about this limitation. Connecting directly to the battery allows the amperage to handle larger loads and spike power demands.
• A quick google search just sent me to a 300 watt Eastwood model for $35 currently

 

[RobotBee]

If you can still get it and if it is not too pricey for your use case, the Smatree portable charging station is the perfect solution. Charges three batteries simultaneously to full in about 40 minutes. Otherwise, carcharger is the next ideal solution.

I've got one of them. Absolutely brilliant thing.

 

[flightsimulation]

Thanks guys.

 

[Detritalgeo]

The official car-charger has to be the most simple way to go. It's a straight 12V DC to 13V DC power supply. No need to transform 12V DC to 120/240V AC back to 13V DC unless thats the parts you have around.

 

[Yanix]

For my mountain trip I bought this power-bank thingy from AliExpress. It charges the battery around 4-5 times and costs less than one additional battery, so I decided it's a good compromise

96.49US $ |for DJI Mavic Air Intelligent Battery Power Bank Charger Portable for Mavic Air Accessories Drone Battery Controller USB Mobile|Drone Battery Chargers| - AliExpress

Smarter Shopping, Better Living! Aliexpress.com

a.aliexpress.com

It was also briefly discussed here

Yx charger / power bank: anyone tried it?

Have anyone any experience with the black Yx battery charger / power bank? After reading some positive feedback about the Yx blue fast charger i went online to get one but stumbled on this other type. It seems to be a battery charger than that also can be used as a power bank. I tried to find...

mavicpilots.com

 

[DanMan32]

Note though that the batteries charge at high watts. In the case for the M2 as an example, the M2 car charger draws 6.5A from the 12v once the battery starts charging. Car wiring from car battery to Mavic car charger can lose a volt or two at such currents, which in the case of the M2 car charger, would cut out due to resulting voltage being too low when vehicle isn't running.

If you have a Prius, then you can have the car fully on without using much gas, assuming it's not too hot to not run the AC.
When I charged an M2 battery that way, I think the engine only ran a total of 5 to 10 total minutes over a few cycles during the 60 or so minutes of charging time.