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Gear / Technical Help => Remote Power => Topic started by: georgeh on October 10, 2014, 12:56:40 PM

Title: Marine battery with dc converter?
Post by: georgeh on October 10, 2014, 12:56:40 PM
Any one ever try charging up at night, festival setting, using a marine battery and a dc/ac converter? Just curious how that would work.
i'd be recharging a M148 and Lithium battery pack 9v/12v (2.5A mx 59.2Wh)
Thanks
Title: Re: Marine battery with dc converter?
Post by: capnhook on October 10, 2014, 02:24:31 PM
You should be good to go, georgeh.....but I usually look for a guy with a big truck, you know, double batteries.....?

That way I don't have to carry.... ;D
Title: Re: Marine battery with dc converter?
Post by: Gutbucket on October 10, 2014, 02:59:25 PM
My standard setup for fest recharging, since I almost always primitive camp off in the woods, is a deep cycle marine battery.  I use it to recharge everything I have that is rechargeable.  Sometimes it also runs a portable stereo system for playing back recordings at camp.

I don't use an AC converter though, everything runs straight 12VDC.  That works for charging 9V DVD batteries directly, my phone, and powers my Maha NiMH chargers for the 9.6Vs, AAs & AAA's.

I made an 'octopus' with battery charger clamps on the battery terminal side , a car-type blade-fuse for safety, and 6 cigarette lighter sockets on the other end into which all the charging stuff plugs into to juice multiple things at once.

If your AC powered gear or chargers uses a 'wall wart' transformer or switching supply in the power cable, check the power labels on the gear or transformer, it may run directly off 12VDC and you can eliminate both the wart and the complications of having to use a converter.

A converter will work fine too, just not quite as efficient, and you need to remember to turn the converter itself off to keep from running the battery down.

Not sure about the specifics of what input charge power the M148 or your lithium pack needs.

 The other nice thing is that the marine battery can also act as an emergency jump-start source in case you're the last vehicle to split on a lazy Monday after the fest, all tired and content, packed and ready to go, then turn the key and it just goes 'click'.
Title: Re: Marine battery with dc converter?
Post by: Colin Liston on October 11, 2014, 01:37:29 AM
Isn't the input of the m148 something strange like 65 volts?
Title: Re: Marine battery with dc converter?
Post by: georgeh on March 30, 2016, 03:53:21 PM
looong delay on response, Thanks for the input, checking on M148 draw with Doug
Title: Re: Marine battery with dc converter?
Post by: georgeh on March 30, 2016, 03:55:30 PM
interested in this option as well, any thoughts

https://jet.com/product/detail/b3adb5ba01f24451ad8fdba0528aa322?jcmp=pla:ggl:gen_electronics_a1:electronics_accessories_cables_a1_other:na:na:na:na:na:2&code=PLA15&ds_c=gen_electronics_a1&ds_cid&ds_ag=electronics_accessories_cables_a1_other&product_id=b3adb5ba01f24451ad8fdba0528aa322&product_partition_id=156817734780&gclid=Cj0KEQjw8u23BRCg6YnzmJmPqYgBEiQALf_XzVUYPaV-z8--WWFKcr0Gvqz8GXthupF_9MGdCJkr8NsaAvZ38P8HAQ
Title: Re: Marine battery with dc converter?
Post by: Gutbucket on March 31, 2016, 02:22:19 PM
There is an SLA in there.  Basically the same size as what tapers used to carry, or one found in a small computer UPS.  Not a huge capacity, but it would work.  Depends on how much stuff you need to recharge and for how long. May be a good option if you want to keep it in your trunk for the other stuff- tire inflator, jump start, etc.
Title: Re: Marine battery with dc converter?
Post by: georgeh on March 31, 2016, 03:06:43 PM
^^^^thanks, you wouldn't have a pic of octopus you mentioned before?, off battery
I think I understand what you described
Title: Re: Marine battery with dc converter?
Post by: Gutbucket on March 31, 2016, 04:11:35 PM
I'll try to remember to take a photo of it tonight or this weekend and post it.

It's just a bunch of cheapo cig-lighter female sockets (plastic housed with lamp wire type leads) which I scavenged from something and wired together in parallel along with a lead to the battery clips (scavenged from a trickle battery charger), using wire nuts.  The lead with the battery clips has a fuse in it for safety in case of a short.
Title: Re: Marine battery with dc converter?
Post by: Colin Liston on April 01, 2016, 08:38:18 PM
This s is just a thought.  Why not use a computer UPS at festivals?  Plug your deck and preamp into the UPS.  It has a SLA inside it and with the small amount of draw from a deck and preamp seems like it would last a while.  Then just recharge it back at the camp site.
Title: Re: Marine battery with dc converter?
Post by: Gutbucket on April 05, 2016, 09:52:54 AM
Would work.  Bulkier and not nearly as efficient (due to inverter DC>AC + transformer AC>DC inefficencies) as using direct DC power directly from the battery, but the charger is built-in.

You going to be the taper at Wanee with the constant UPS beep alarm contaminating everyone's recordings?  :P
Title: Re: Marine battery with dc converter?
Post by: kindms on April 06, 2016, 11:44:32 AM
Would work.  Bulkier and not nearly as efficient (due to inverter DC>AC + transformer AC>DC inefficencies) as using direct DC power directly from the battery, but the charger is built-in.

You going to be the taper at Wanee with the constant UPS beep alarm contaminating everyone's recordings?  :P

We did this but it was an even bigger mistake.

We were doing recordings for Wormtown or strangecreek Music Festival. They were kind enough to let us setup a pop up(which got stolen) and record the fest for Mark etc. We were just doing mic recordings, i dont think we were taking a board feed. Anyway so we brought the UPS with us thinking it would save our bacon as the stage would loose power from time to time (in those days). So all weekend long we were running DATs and no troubles detected. Power goes out on the main stage and the band keeps playing and we keep rolling, we are high fiving thinking that hauling that weight was all worth it. Then we listened to the tapes critically and the F-ing UPS put a high pitched hard to detect whine on all the f-ing recordings plugged in to it.

so for recharging probably ok but dont run your gear off of them.
Title: Re: Marine battery with dc converter?
Post by: twatts (pants are so over-rated...) on April 06, 2016, 11:48:55 AM
Would work.  Bulkier and not nearly as efficient (due to inverter DC>AC + transformer AC>DC inefficencies) as using direct DC power directly from the battery, but the charger is built-in.

You going to be the taper at Wanee with the constant UPS beep alarm contaminating everyone's recordings?  :P

We did this but it was an even bigger mistake.

We were doing recordings for Wormtown or strangecreek Music Festival. They were kind enough to let us setup a pop up(which got stolen) and record the fest for Mark etc. We were just doing mic recordings, i dont think we were taking a board feed. Anyway so we brought the UPS with us thinking it would save our bacon as the stage would loose power from time to time (in those days). So all weekend long we were running DATs and no troubles detected. Power goes out on the main stage and the band keeps playing and we keep rolling, we are high fiving thinking that hauling that weight was all worth it. Then we listened to the tapes critically and the F-ing UPS put a high pitched hard to detect whine on all the f-ing recordings plugged in to it.

so for recharging probably ok but dont run your gear off of them.


Sine-Wave something something...  I remember reading about that a long while ago...

Terry
Title: Re: Marine battery with dc converter?
Post by: Gutbucket on April 06, 2016, 01:24:32 PM
Yeah, cheapo UPS output either a square wave (old really crappy ones) or a not very pretty synthesized AC waveform that's a bit less square-wavish to minimize the power in the harmonics while still being cheap to make (modified-sine wave).

The good ones (usually slightly larger models, more costly) produce true sine-wave output which is far cleaner and less noisy. 

The power supplies in computers don't care. So most small low-budget UPS are modified-sine-wave.  May or may not work well enough depending on the inverter and your gear.  I've used a UPS for the charger part of it only a few times back at camp, and removed the battery once re-charged for use powering the rig directly via DC.
Title: Re: Marine battery with dc converter?
Post by: Colin Liston on April 06, 2016, 04:17:24 PM
Would work.  Bulkier and not nearly as efficient (due to inverter DC>AC + transformer AC>DC inefficencies) as using direct DC power directly from the battery, but the charger is built-in.

You going to be the taper at Wanee with the constant UPS beep alarm contaminating everyone's recordings?  :P

Not now...
Title: Re: Marine battery with dc converter?
Post by: Gutbucket on April 08, 2016, 04:25:06 PM
thanks, you wouldn't have a pic of octopus you mentioned before?, off battery
I think I understand what you described
I'll try to remember to take a photo of it tonight or this weekend and post it.

It's just a bunch of cheapo cig-lighter female sockets (plastic housed with lamp wire type leads) which I scavenged from something and wired together in parallel along with a lead to the battery clips (scavenged from a trickle battery charger), using wire nuts.  The lead with the battery clips has a fuse in it for safety in case of a short.

photo as promised-
Title: Re: Marine battery with dc converter?
Post by: lsd2525 on April 11, 2016, 03:56:06 PM
This should get you through a couple of days.....