GH4 GH4 long-lasting external battery solution?

Butchnap

Butchnap

Member
Hi folks, new to the GH4 world and just have a quick question - Would an external battery like the one in the following video work safely with a GH4?

https://youtu.be/4OXD3ENA_UA

I am coming from shooting a Canon t3i and loved using this little "hack".. I own two of the batteries he uses in that video. With a dummy GH4 battery/Lampart cable to the same battery, would this work to power the GH4 in the same way?

Thanks in advance,

Nick
 
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Yes, that will work, but I might suggest something else if it fits your workflow. I would suggest a professional V mount battery and a mount that has 9 volt, and a couple 5 volts outputs in addition to the 14.4 volt battery out. The 9 volt to power the camera (gh2 in my case), one 5 volts to power a Tascam audio recorder. I could then add a camera mounted light (14.4 volts) if needed or power wireless microphone receivers or hdmi transmitters (not a good choice with my gh2). Going to cost more, but gets you onto an industry standard battery system.
 
Depending on your setup (and to keep things easy/compact) you could simply get a Panasonic battery grip... 2 full batteries will run almost 8 hours anyway.
 
He's already got the batteries, which is why he was asking if it would work for the GH4.
 
One of the best features of the GH4 is how long the batteries last, & I typically wouldn't muck that up with a external power solution.

Also be aware if the external battery dies, or gets disconnected, the file will corrupt. That is not a concern with OEM, or properely chipped, internal batteries.
 
Butchnap said:
Hi folks, new to the GH4 world and just have a quick question
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Hi Nick,

if you would like the only professional internally regulated system, it's this cable. It has built in low voltage (both sides), circuit breaker and polarity protection (all automatically) and uses a genuine Anton Bauer P-Tap rather than a poor fitting/low quality knock off.

You can attach it to this low cost generic V-mount battery and bob's your uncle. Power for days.

It will cost you a little more, but you can have total confidence in the system and the battery will work for any camera you get in the future, it will also run 4-6 times longer than a Power Bank.
 
Butchnap said:
Hi folks, new to the GH4 world and just have a quick question - Would an external battery like the one in the following video work safely with a GH4?

https://youtu.be/4OXD3ENA_UA

I am coming from shooting a Canon t3i and loved using this little "hack".. I own two of the batteries he uses in that video. With a dummy GH4 battery/Lampart cable to the same battery, would this work to power the GH4 in the same way?

Thanks in advance,

Nick
Click to expand...

Nick,

I use the same batteries/power banks in that video for my GH4. I got a dummy battery from amazon and connect it to this battery pack.

NOTES,

1. The benefits of this particular power bank which is called in different names, ANKER or XTPower is that it has a physical switch that slides from 9v to 12 volt which for me is safer than a multi press selector switch of other models.
Slide it to 9Volts for use with the dummy battery. Don't worry if the input on the dummy batt says 8.XX volt, it won't damage your GH4.
2. This would give you more than 8 hours of record time for your GH4.
3. The other benefit is the 2 extra USB ports to power other devices like a sound recorder. I plug my Tascam DR70D, which is a power hog, and together with the GH4 will run for 7 plus hours. If you have 2 of these, you are covered for long work days.
NOTE when using this together with a sound recorder.
When connecting both GH4 and an external recorder to a power bank, IF you connect the audio out of your ext recorder to the GH4 mic in, there is a ground loop interference on the recorded audio of the GH4, audio recorded on recorder is OK.
If you don't connect the audio out from recorder to GH4 mic in, there is NO Problem in both audio recordings.
If you need the audio out from external recorder to be recorded in the GH4 via mic in, use a ground loop isolator, which is very cheap, you can get one from radio shack or in amazon from various vendors. Ground loop isolator removes the interference. This is what I use, even if I record multi tracks from the Tascam, I want the GH4 to also record the output as safety and guide track.

I made a custom cradle to attach this battery to the side of my cage. The isolator is behind the battery, not shown in pic. It's small, about the size of a lipstick.

12485992_759113930886060_5246499160438738209_o.jpg
 
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That's great to hear that this set-up works! I like the look of the cradle too.. Care to share how you did it? I have velcro on mine like in the video but never loved it.
 
Illya Friedman said:
Hi Nick,

if you would like the only professional internally regulated system, it's this cable. It has built in low voltage (both sides), circuit breaker and polarity protection (all automatically) and uses a genuine Anton Bauer P-Tap rather than a poor fitting/low quality knock off.

You can attach it to this low cost generic V-mount battery and bob's your uncle. Power for days.

It will cost you a little more, but you can have total confidence in the system and the battery will work for any camera you get in the future, it will also run 4-6 times longer than a Power Bank.
Click to expand...

Wow Illya that PANASONIC BLF19 BATTERY TO ANTON BAUER P-TAP POWER ADAPTER CABLE costs a "fortune". Is it really necessary to price a dummy battery plus P-Tap so high??? I'm all for businesses making a profit, but to charge $171 for the combo seems more than a little excessive!
 
It would need to have a voltage regulator built into the battery adapter, so not completely empty. That said I bought a regulator to make my gh2 rig, it cost $8 and if I chose it will fit inside the dummy battery with ample room to spare. Need to see what kind of heat it produces to decide where to mount it.
 
plegilink said:
Wow Illya that PANASONIC BLF19 BATTERY TO ANTON BAUER P-TAP POWER ADAPTER CABLE costs a "fortune". Is it really necessary to price a dummy battery plus P-Tap so high??? I'm all for businesses making a profit, but to charge $171 for the combo seems more than a little excessive!
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Dear Plegilink,

You assume wrong and the reality is very different.

This cable is the only Panasonic BLF19/P-tap cable in the world that does what it does- the way it does it.

It has an internal circuit breaker, which is reset by removing from the camera for 10-seconds. It has polarity protection in case someone connects a wrongly wired cable/power source, it has low voltage protection on both the camera and the battery side so you will not damage an attached battery nor the camera. It's impossibly small, light, and heat efficient (essentially none!) This was particularly important with our other version for Canon LP-E6 batteries.

The internal PCB of our cable is made in the USA. The PCB plus other raw components cost almost exactly $100, the P-tap in genuine Anton Bauer which is about $8 (in bulk pricing), the materials of the custom coiled "tough shield" coiled cable is about $13 (including shipping, extra stretch, and pinch resist) and the L.A. local labor to assemble is about $11 so that's $133 total. Selling at $171 means $38 profit. This is 22%, probably the LOWEST profit margin cable product on the market!

I could buy a knock-off cable from China for $21 (in bulk) sell to you for $88 and you'd have something that would be inferior in every way (and definitely more dangerous to your equipment) and would be directly supporting a foreign economy (and you are being charged a 419% profit margin!)

Just because two cables look alike and have the same function do not mean they are in anyway the same. Micro manufacturing quality products in small batches in the USA generally means very LOW profit margins. If I were to price the cable at the same margin as the folks buying in China we would be over $700.

We have probably 30 of these cables left and we will likely never build another batch because of the expense, hassle and lack of caring by the average person who doesn't understand what's involved or what we've done. But we also have clients shooting major studio movies and television shows with their GH4 and we were asked specifically to make a BLF19 version of our previous cable because who wants to trust their production to a company that does a poor copy of our original cable?!?! The company that builds knock offs of our product is way more concerned about profit that results.

We also sell cheap cables to the people who don't care, but we also inform our customers so they know the differences. If you assume that higher price equals higher profit, you run the risk of being wrong, a lot.
 
Illya has a valid point: a well designed efficient and reliable adapter costs much more than a cheap off shore made similar looking device. We make battery adapters for GH cameras since the GH2 came out a few years ago; while they are very reliable and functional, they do not compete on price with Chinese imports.
Greg_E - just FYI - when you use a $8 regulator, it is most likely a simple *linear* kind, which dissipates excess voltage as heat. It wastes battery charge on useless heat...
 
Batutta said:
I don't see why it wouldn't. I have this AC adapter for the GH4. The dummy battery part has a short cable with a female plug you can detach.

http://www.amazon.com/HQRP-Panasoni...UTF8&qid=1460905032&sr=8-1&keywords=DMW-DCC12
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I got that AC adapter, and while the dummy battery does detach, it's cord jack is smaller in diameter than the ones on my Canon dummies.. So the cord I use between the dummy adapter and the battery won't fit in the Panasonic dummy jack (though it will for the Canon ones). Included with the battery are a bunch of plugs for various laptops.. One of them seems to fit in the plug for the Panasonic dummy battery, but I'm not sure what kinda crap I'm getting into at this point. What do you folks think? I've attached a bunch of pics, hopefully in order, and I will detail them here.

Pic 1 is of the extension cord connected to my battery's 9v/12v output. I need to get this to plug into my Panasonic dummy battery somehow.
Pic 2 is of the jacks of two dummy batteries.. The left one is the Panasonic, the right is Canon. You can see how the Panasonic one has less space.. The cord from Pic 1 won't fit, though the Canon one does.
Pic 3 is the battery's included assortment of laptop plugs.
Pic 4 is the plug that appears to fit both the extension cord is Pic 1 and the Panasonic dummy battery.
Pic 5 is another view of the plug.
Pic 6 is of the plug next to the Panasonic dummy battery's jack.
Pic 7 is of the plug plugged into the Panasonic dummy battery's jack. It fits snugly, like it is meant to plug into it!
Pic 8 is of the full set up.

My question is, do we think this will work without frying the camera? That little laptop adapter is giving me major pause and I'm pretty much afraid to test it with the camera.. But if this won't work, I need to buy another Lanparte adapter that will fit.

Thanks!

Nick
 

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@Butchnap I use a similar setup. Just make sure the battery is set to 9v and none of your adapters switches the polarity.
 
anti12 said:
@Butchnap I use a similar setup. Just make sure the battery is set to 9v and none of your adapters switches the polarity.
Click to expand...

How can you tell if the adapter switches the polarity or not? The battery's instruction sheet is vague about the laptop/phone plugs..

Thanks!
 
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