@AerialGopher thanks for this.
I have some questions about your wiring up as am very keen to give this a go (10 day hiking trip coming up):
- Your power banks can run at 12 / 16/ 19V DC out - I wasn't clear on which one of these you selected, only that you put them in series so that would double it.
- I've noticed that there's a lot of LiPO car starting battery packs popping up recently - given these do 12 / 16 / 19v DC out how feasible do you reckon these would be? Can't see how they are significantly different than a normal power bank? eg: 30000mAh Power Bank 12V USB Car Jump Starter Battery Emergency Charger Booster A | eBay
- Any other advice now you've been running it for a few months?
Well, one word of advice is that the ratings given for most portable battery banks that I had seen were very high... but the actual physical size could not hold that much power. I too looked at the jump start li-ion packs, and almost did it. It would of been nice to have that ability too to jump start a car. But it came down to the extra 0 that the Chinese companys always put on the ratings for their battery's. Like 80000 Mah YEAH, that was not the case, those were in fact 8000 and there are boost packs that are 8000 mah that boost your small car. I took a chance on the pack that I ordered. It had issues due to the higher load than expected, and again the circuitry on my pack was supposed to supply 5 amps, but it did not quite do that. and also I made the assumption that the volts would be correct, ie 12 would be 12.0 and 16 would be 16.0, tuned out that the 12 was 12.something that didn't allow the OEM car charger actually charge due to the lower than allowed voltage/battery protection crap. The setting of 16 volts was avtually between 16.1 and 16.3, again out of spec for the oem mavic charger. I read somewhere that the components inside the actual 12 volt male plug on the oem charger limited the voltage at the plug before it got to the charger, so I took a chance and used a 12 volt lead acid battery in series with that laptop battery bank, and it was working, charging the mavic batteries. It was limited because I had a really bad lead acid battery. I then decided to order 1 more Laptop battery bank, and when I got it, I tried them both at 12 volt setting, and they worked, but on occasion would power off for some reason, I think because the voltage was not high enough for the mavic charger to charge the battery, like it needed to be over 24.8 or something and I was only giving it 24.4, so when there is no load on the battery banks, they power off to conserve power. So I tried as a joke at 16 volt setting on each battery bank, and that woked flawlessly. I do on occasion have one or the other battery bank power off then the second one would too, but that's ok because it is so rare. I one time had the thing in my trunk charging batteries while we drove to different sites and stop and film stuff at each place ( Only because car socket shuts off when car off ) and it charged the 7 battery cycles no problem with no shut offs. even when hiking and walking, I would say 95% of the time the charging system works flawlessly. Occasionally the cable gets unplugged but all I did was wedge a piece of folded paper on the side of the mavic charger male plug to keep it from sliding in the female socket ( No dirty jokes here )
I was so happy with it, I bought two more battery banks, so now I have 4 mavic batteries and 4 Battery banks, and can do 18 battery cycles if I needed ( 4 mavic, 7 Charges + 7 charges) I have a smaller 6600mah usb battery bank that I use to charge the controller.... and I have an android phone so that gets charged by the controller, which I don't like, but I do not want to root my phone to stop that.
The battery banks have certain things you should know how it works. If you press the power button WHILE a cable is connected to the output connector, it will only turn on the 5v USB and not the 12/16/19 port. YOu have to disconnect the cable, press the power button 2 times to make it 16 volts, and do the same on the second battery bank, then plug in the special DC connector to 12 volt socket I made.
One other note, WHY I choose these battery banks over the car boosting ones.. simple - Much cleaner look to them, the other ones were bigger and bulky some had rubberized protecting outsides, and quite frankly I could not find one that had a REAL capacity that was stated.
My set up is not perfect, but It works, and is light and portable. I took all the mavic stuff, 4 mavic batteries and 4 battery banks on a 28 Km hike and survived... had food and water too..
You can use these battery banks for your laptop as well, even on a hike, or to charge Ipads, two way radio's cameras etc..
YOur link to the ebay item only has 30 000 mah, if that is real. Volts x Amps = Watts 3.6 x 30 = 108 Watt Hour Mavic battery is 45 Watt hour, so with losses due to heat etc you can only charge 2 mavic batteries, assuming the output voltage and amps will be good enough for that famous Mavic charger and its very strict and tight window of power requirements.
If you are going hiking for 10 days, you may want to consider Solar, but keep this in mind.. you need lots of power to charge those battery banks. I charge each one in 4 hours with a laptop charger at 19 volts and 1.6 amps. Keep in mind solar voltage drops with a load on it and the rated power is always a lot less than what they say due to may factors. I would not put hope that you will get any amount of power from a small solar panel on a back pack, as its always changing angles and will cause power to the battery banks to go on and off which is probably going to mess them up. But if you were stationary it might work. Depends on if you want to carry a solar panel, but they are out there, foldable ones or even flexible. Personally If it was me I would spend the money on 4 or even 6 of those battery banks before I bought solar panels. You will be stopped hiking late in the day to set up tents etc, and there is no more sun left or limited to even charge the banks. Just get someone else to carry them
they are about 940 Grams each. I spent COUNTLESS days searching the internet for a battery to do this, and its honesty the best price for capacity. I only found one other one that was bigger ( 50 000 Mah ) that was about triple the cost. I got 90 000 mah (45000x2) for $175 cnd dollars ( I think these battery banks went up in price, they are $95.00 cnd each now )
Very happy with it. Everyone I fly drones with is impressed with how much I can fly....Then after a couple hours there is no one else flying.....
I'm like but I still have 7 more hours of flying I can do....
p.s. use 90 deg DC connector at the battery bank so as not to put a strain on the connector. I just cut off those from a couple old power supplies, and the wire inside is very thin and they get a bit warm, I have to go make a new cable for that. That was the only thing I would change. Oh and black for the battery bank, which I think they have them in black, but hard to find.