Portable Power in the Grand Canyon?

J

jaycanode

Active member
I'll be 6 days documenting a raft trip in the G.C. using Panasonic GH3 in August. Will need to bring laptop, hard drives, etc for offloading footage. My plan is to bring down a product such as this.....

http://www.amazon.com/Duracell-DRPP600-Powerpack-Starter-Emergency/dp/B009YR00MI/ref=pd_sim_auto_5

....in order to charge batteries through maybe 4 cycles during the trip. Do not want to buy a gross of batteries for the GH3 as they are still too expensive. Anyone have any insight or experience with such a task? The obvious impacts of sand, water, and heat all play into this trip. Will have no way to charge the portable power supply once in the Canyon and I prefer not to purchase a solar panel for this purpose.

Thanks, Jay
 
I've used those duracell deals in the past. In fact had two or three of them in the van with us on a road movie. They work pretty well, but really don't last all too long. However I was using them to run kino flo car kits and etc on them, so your application might put less stress on them.

We also had one of them die in the middle of the trip, so might be worth getting two of them if you can haul them.
 
The problem with invertors, 12V to 110V, is they use the all the voltage to power the invertor. So, don't expect it to last too long no matter the current drawn.
 
Could you swing a small generator? Here is one of the smallest and lightest (at 27.5 lbs) ones I have ever seen. It is the same weight as the Duracell gizmo (which is 27.8 lbs). 800 watts should be totally enough for your needs
 
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Paul Hudson said:
The problem with invertors, 12V to 110V, is they use the all the voltage to power the invertor. So, don't expect it to last too long no matter the current drawn.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, most inverters don't publish efficiency specifications, so you won't know how much power is wasted. But a decent inverter should achieve 90% or higher. So 10% or less of the power is wasted.
 
Correct but it requires a use of amps if it is on and not powering any devise, thus the efficiency drops way down. If you don't believe it hook one up to your car and not use it to power anything. In the morning you will most likely have a dead battery.
 
Ok, now I understand what you are saying. Yes, indeed. Also, people need to be very aware that 5 amps at 120 volts equals 50+ amps at 12 volts. It will drain the battery in a hurry. Plus you need some heavy duty cables to handle that current continuously.
 
Is it possible to accurately quantify the run time/charging/total use capabilities of those battery options? How would you figure all the variables and give yourself enough safety factor to cover 6 days in the total wilderness cited in OP? That is where the small lightweight generator would be more attractive to me as opposed to a battery option. I would probably be more than a little anal about a good bit of safety margin. With a battery option I would think that this safety margin would come with a weight premium (Extra batteries) as opposed to the generator option where the safety margin would be just a few more gallons of gasoline (6.073 lb/US gal). Of course, there are huge questions about reliability and safety that would have to be figured out also. It's like a giant word problem, and ya gotta show your work.... I hate that!

EDIT:

It looks like that Vagabond II battery is a product that is going to be discontinued. As for the weight factor, it weighs 18.6 lbs. That is 3 gallons of gasoline, which right now, where I am at in Michigan, would cost about $11. I would be willing to bet that 3 gallons of gasoline in that small generator would give you a heck of lot more electricity than one of those Vagabond II batteries on a 6 day trip in the wilderness without recharging.

http://www.paulcbuff.com/vagabond.php
 
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In this scenario I'd skip the laptop, hard drives, & powers source. Instead I'd pony up for enough batteries, & memory cards, to get thru the trip.

If need be you could always sell them afterwards.
 
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Bern Caughey said:
In thisbscenario I'd skip the laptop, hard drives, & powers source. Instead I'd pony up for enough batteries, & memory cards, to get thru the trip.

If need be you could always sell them afterwards.
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Yup probably a better bet to battery up. A generator would kinda ruin the ambiance of the trip if I had to have one buzzing at camp every night. I shoot very efficiently anyway. Shopping around today found the cheap Wasabi GH3 batteries and Sony's 64 gb class 10 SD's are on sale for $37 right now! Thanks for everyone's input.
 
David G. Smith said:
Is it possible to accurately quantify the run time/charging/total use capabilities of those battery options? How would you figure all the variables and give yourself enough safety factor to cover 6 days in the total wilderness cited in OP? That is where the small lightweight generator would be more attractive to me as opposed to a battery option. I would probably be more than a little anal about a good bit of safety margin. With a battery option I would think that this safety margin would come with a weight premium (Extra batteries) as opposed to the generator option where the safety margin would be just a few more gallons of gasoline (6.073 lb/US gal). Of course, there are huge questions about reliability and safety that would have to be figured out also. It's like a giant word problem, and ya gotta show your work.... I hate that!

EDIT:

It looks like that Vagabond II battery is a product that is going to be discontinued. As for the weight factor, it weighs 18.6 lbs. That is 3 gallons of gasoline, which right now, where I am at in Michigan, would cost about $11. I would be willing to bet that 3 gallons of gasoline in that small generator would give you a heck of lot more electricity than one of those Vagabond II batteries on a 6 day trip in the wilderness without recharging.

http://www.paulcbuff.com/vagabond.php
Click to expand...

There are no internal combustion engines allowed in the park at this time due to high fire hazard. This does not include automobiles, but autos are only allowed on improved roadways. There is the main problem with a small generator.

We have people renting small genies from us all the time. We do advise them of the issues on BLM and Park Service land. Often they decide not to rent when the deposit required is the cost of the genie. These machines can and will be seized for violation of the rules. Under certain circumstances, and with enough prior warning you may be granted to carry a small engine but it is not likely.

Reason...You may remember the Yarnell fire from June in AZ where 19 firefighters died. After this I am sure the rules are even tighter.
 
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Paul Hudson said:
There are no internal combustion engines allowed in the park at this time due to high fire hazard. This does not include automobiles, but autos are only allowed on improved roadways. There is the main problem with a small generator.

We have people renting small genies from us all the time. We do advise them of the issues on BLM and Park Service land. Often they decide not to rent when the deposit required is the cost of the genie. These machines can and will be seized for violation of the rules. Under certain circumstances, and with enough prior warning you may be granted to carry a small engine but it is not likely.

Reason...You may remember the Yarnell fire from June in AZ where 19 firefighters died. After this I am sure the rules are even tighter.
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Wow, I did not consider that Paul. Thank you.

I am still very curious about how you would quantify the battery needs for a situation like this. Paul, do you know how to do the math on total usage you could get from a battery system?
 
The math is simple, but getting good information is not because the consumption of power varies with the type of use both for cameras and computers. The best you can do is to run the equipment off battery in a typical application and see how long they last. Once you have that, then you have a set of typical power consumption numbers. If the manual lists a power consumption, you can use that.

Each battery is rated in amp-hours or milliamp-hours. But each battery runs at a different voltage, so you need to convert all the numbers to watts to get a common figure. So multiply amp-hours by the voltage of the battery and you get watt-hours. Now you have a set of batteries you used, how many watt-hours they are rated at, and how long they lasted. You now can divide the watt hours of each battery by the hours it lasted. To do that, first convert the minutes to a fraction of an hour. Then divide the fraction into the watt hours.

For example - you have a 7.4v camera battery rated at 1000 millamp-hours. 1000 x 7.4 = 7400milliwatt-hours or 7.4 watt-hours.
The battery lasted 4 hours and 10 minutes or 4.17 hours. Therefore, the camera consumes 7.4/4.17 or 1.77 watts.

Do that for each item and total them up. You now have an estimate of how much power you consume.

The main battery you use will also have a amp-hour rating. Convert that to watt-hours. Watt-hours = amp-hours x voltage.

You have an inverter. This one is the problem as you don't really know how much it consumes. But ignoring Paul's point of wasting power while it is idling for a moment, let's assume it is a in-efficient inverter and runs at 85%. Then de-rate the battery by 15% (100%-85%). So if you have a 200 amp-hour battery, then it is a 200 x 12 = 2400 watt-hour battery. Derate that 15% and it is a =2400*.85 = 2040 watt-hour battery.

Now you have all the numbers. You know the total power consumption and the rating of the battery. If the total power consumption is 100 watts then the battery will last 2040/100 = 20.4 hours.

Then you have to take in Paul's point. You would have to run some tests to find out what the waste factor is for that.
 
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Wow... there is a whole bunch of "Carry the naughts" there!!! I have a headache!


Yeah, throw in two more batteries for safety... Got ya!

Thank you.
 
jaycanode said:
I'll be 6 days documenting a raft trip in the G.C. using Panasonic GH3 in August. Will need to bring laptop, hard drives, etc for offloading footage. My plan is to bring down a product such as this.....

Thanks, Jay
Click to expand...

I just bid on a similar project. If it's a go,I plan on wiring a cord with a female houseold plug to an old Anton Bauer plate. I'll use my precharged AB style batteries as an energy source to charge my gh3 / gh2 batteries and run a laptop if I bring one.

Forgoing card backup/rendundancy is not worth it for me. I also don't want to buy any more equipment that I won't have future use for. Shelving the cards after downloading them would provide the redundancy comfort that I'm looking for. I figure bringing my gh2/gh3 batteries, (2) 90w and a 150w AB battery should provide the needed juice.
 
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