Topic: External Microtrack Battery Pack

[insanescott]

I was looking to buy something locally at Radio Shack maybe to externally power my Microtrack.  Can anyone suggest anything for purchase locally?  Thanks.

[guysonic]

I was looking to buy something locally at Radio Shack maybe to externally power my Microtrack.  Can anyone suggest anything for purchase locally?  Thanks.

Energizer "Energi-to-Go" USB version works great for doubling MT runtimes.

see threadhttp://taperssection.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=dc5cb19c3eae03a2a98a47d2a8b6b290&topic=85254.0;all

[ironbut]

It works great for HiMD like my MZ M200 too. It does work best with a fully charged internal battery in MD recorder but even with regular duracells, it seems to keep up pretty well. It fills the need for a replacement for the "sidecar" AA cell battery of my back up M100.
I just finished doing a test for both the stock "e" Lithium AA batteries (manufacturer recommended) and a pair of normal Duracells coppertops.
The test was done with a fully charged lion cell in my M200(rh-1) minidisc on pcm record on mic input. 1 G minidiscs were used
with the e lithium batteries I was able to record 10 minidiscs. each disc=95 minutes
with coppertop duracells I was able to record 6 minidiscs.
As the battery pack runs out of juice, it fell slightly behind. I don't think this is a real concern since normally, you'd be doing tape flips/ stopping between sets etc. This allows the charger to catch up.
For the size/cost I think it's great solution for my festival recordings since it gives me lots of options. I think I'll still carry a fully charged lion battery as an emergency back-up, but for the most part, I think that it should be great (until someone figures out how to stuff a 32-64G ssd into a MR-1).

[GroundHog420]

I just recently had a situation where I needed to add a charge to my M-Audio Microtrack during a show, as I think the internal battery is on its' last legs, and the level was quite low early in the show.  After it appeared to have taken a good charge, I disconnected the USB battery pack from the Microtrack - as I've been able to do in the past with no issues, and the unit went BLANK - deleting the entire hour and ten minutes I had just recorded!  I booted the unit back up, and it recorded the rest of the show with no problems, and after the show, I tried connecting/disconnecting the battery pack again, and the unit continued to run just fine.  I can't replicate the situation at home, and the only thing that I was doing differently at this show was that I was running a patch to another taper's backup DAT, from my RCA outs (lucky I was!), because we wanted to compare source recordings from our different mics/rigs.  He suggested that maybe having the patch might have put more of a strain on the power source, which sounds plausible to me, but I honestly don't know.

Has anyone else run into any situations like this?  I'm trying to understand what might have caused this, so hopefully, I can avoid having it happen again!

[danlynch]

I was looking to buy something locally at Radio Shack maybe to externally power my Microtrack.  Can anyone suggest anything for purchase locally?  Thanks.

I have used the Macally external li-ion battery for almost a year with flawless results.  The internal battery on my now 3 year old MT is pretty much history, it holds a charge for about an hour now.  So I start off with the Macally plugged into the MT for the whole show.  Recently ran straight through 6 hours of music, and then used it for another two hours later in the day. 

Here is the NewEgg link for the Macally:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16855998033

Which is where I bought it, but there are better prices online, like here:
http://www.amazon.com/MACALLY-External-Battery-all-iPods/dp/B000CGG8LW   
-and here-
http://www.thetwistergroup.com/store/customer/product.php?productid=IP-A481%20H28301&source=fr