Replacement Lightweight battery

[Rodney V. Smith]

I got a varizoom monitor pretty cheap about a week ago and quickly discovered that the battery refused to hold a charge. My other battery that had come with my 5.6 Marshall was essentially a brick and was hard to place anywhere... plus I went and lost the power adapter... so I could no longer charge it.

All I wanted was something that weighed less than 1lb, and could poentially fit onto the back of the monitor... a nice light weight solution.

THen I came across this little puppy...

here the link to the product site: http://www.xantrex.com/web/id/233/p/1/pt/5/product.asp

It says its supposed to give 2 hours of use on a laptop, so I've decided to test it out. I;ve charged it up (3 hours initial charge),applied some velco to the back of it, and now it's sitting on the back of my monitor...

We'll see how long it powers the unit for.


One of the other things that I considered this to be useful for was immediate and lightweight backup power for camera, onboard lights... anything that needs a quick power boost. After this initial test with the monitor O'll have to test it to see if I can split the power to run 2 things at once....

I managed to pick this one up for $50 and I know Balck and Decker has a similar unit for $40-$50.

 

[Rodney V. Smith]

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Decker-..._m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1BCP1P9B0GFR04J2XVM0

Black & Decker 100 Watt Laptop Power To Go Cordless AC/USB Power Supply #CPI100B $38.89

 

[DM_rider]

I'm interested in the run times. Definitely post them up.

 

[Rodney V. Smith]

I had plugged it in last night about an hour before I posted here. It's still running.

I had originally been concerned about noise from it, since when it charges it has to turn it's internal fans on, but during runtime there has been no fan activaion. I suspect that if you're in a hot environment the fan ay kick on, but I'll have to test that to omake sure. So far, no fan and still power...

 

[Rodney V. Smith]

it just BEEPED at me and turned itself off. powered down completely. Now time to recharge.

 

[sek0910]

Here's a pocket sized 20watt B&D unit for only $19.85. Says it will supply up to 5 hours of power...

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Decker-..._m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0VA7JZCZ1WP1H0Z6DZEQ

Other sellers on Amazon are even selling them for about $15 including shipping

 

[Rodney V. Smith]

I saw that one two, but it doesn't say if it supplies AC power OUT so I don't know how that one will work. I've been trying to see if there is a USB cord that converts to a 12v bit but I think I may have to build that myself. Right now I;ve got the 12v adapter plugged in and while it works it's a little inelegant.... still it does supply power for just about anything on my setup.

Edit: correction: it does supply AC power

20W, Pocket Power Cordless/Rechargeable Power Supply, Compact & Lightweight, Fits In Pocket, Portable, Provides Up To 5 Hours Of Extended Run Time, Power & Simultaneously Recharge Small Personal Electronics On The Go, Supplies Portable AC & USB Power To Mobile Electronics, Built In Power/Fault LED Indicates The Condition Of The Inverter, Battery Status LED Lets You Know The Condition Of The Battery, Includes Rechargeable Ni-MH Battery Using AC Adapter & Travel Bag To Holds Battery Pack & Adapter.

 

[Rodney V. Smith]

Looks like I'll have to buy one and test it out too.

 

[adolgin]

Rodney, just a suggestion. If your monitor accepts DC voltage, your really want to find a DC voltage source ie. a 12-14V battery, not AC. The reason is any device like the above, has to internally convert its internal DC battery voltage to AC, loosing 20-30% in conversion losses. Then your monitor takes 120AC and internally converts 120AC to DC, again loosing some while doing that. Why is it important? You would be getting much longer run time if not for losses. In other words, the Xantrex unit has internal 4AH battery, which should be able to power your monitor for 4 hours if connected directly to it. But because of the conversion, the runtime will be 2.5-3 hours instead. There are Tekkeon batteries there for DC power, and many others.

 

[Rodney V. Smith]

good to know it. I don;t know jack about electronics and I'll definitely have to get one of those Tekkeons. I just needed something immediately and here in Toronto, the so-called "pro photo shops" don't stock the batteries I need. Not even the Tekkeon. This was a good instant fix and I thought I'd pass it on.

Still good for a power backup in the field though.

 

[Al MacLeod]

The Tekkeon looks interesting. I wonder if the 7.5 voltage setting is close enough for the HVX200 7.2 volt input.....

 

[adolgin]

good to know it. I don;t know jack about electronics and I'll definitely have to get one of those Tekkeons. I just needed something immediately and here in Toronto, the so-called "pro photo shops" don't stock the batteries I need. Not even the Tekkeon. This was a good instant fix and I thought I'd pass it on.

Still good for a power backup in the field though.

Sure, the price is right, and can be used for many things. I do not have a hands on experience with the Tekkeons, but Luis who makes the Carrion swears by them

 

[Rodney V. Smith]

In about 3 days I'll definitely have hands on experience: I just ordered one with a backup battery... its apparently stackable. Now gotta go explain to my wife why i needed 2 of them when I was talking about buying one... :grin"

 

[DCERVENKA]

Interesting solution... I too have the Varizoom and I've not been happy with the run time of the batteries.

I was looking into getting one of these: http://www.batteryspace.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=1001 and then just attaching my own connector.


The specs on the VZ-TFT-7 show Power Input: 10-17 VDC, so based on adolgin's post it sounds like the best solution is to ditch the "12V DC / 1A Step-up Cable" and get a 12V battery instead..

For the price of the "Tekkeon MP3450 myPower" you can get something like this: http://www.batteryspace.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=4159 it's not the prettiest solution, but you do get 74 Wh capacity vs. only 50 Wh with the Tekkeon..

A slightly more elegant solution would be to use one of these bike light waterbottle battery configurations: http://www.batteryspace.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=4442 (but is will cost you $ 155)

Based on the varizoom's Power Consumption of 10W max then this battery will last you 7.9 hours... (pulled from batteryspace's calculation of a "10W HID light ( Lupine Endison )" )

 

[Texanite]

I;ve charged it up (3 hours initial charge),applied some velco to the back of it, and now it's sitting on the back of my monitor...

We'll see how long it powers the unit for.

I had plugged it in last night about an hour before I posted here. It's still running.

You posted this about 8 hours after your original post. Are you saying that it ran your monitor for 9 hours!?!? That would be very impressive, but I find it a little hard to believe so maybe I'm not understanding your post. Did you have anything being displayed on the monitor for that whole time?

 

[Rodney V. Smith]

You posted this about 8 hours after your original post. Are you saying that it ran your monitor for 9 hours!?!? That would be very impressive, but I find it a little hard to believe so maybe I'm not understanding your post. Did you have anything being displayed on the monitor for that whole time?

Field test with a location shoot this weekend: The battery ran for 5 hours straight before needing to be recharged. The monitor was definitely displaying an image all of the time on this shoot. On my previous test the camera battery had died,so it's likely that for about 3-4 hours there was nothing displayed. But now I can confirm 5 hours run time. Handy to have...

the only problem I had was when i had to attach the monitor to the steady cam. It pulls the balance off because of the plug sticking out at the side, so I had my 1st AC run behind me holding the battery pack. definitely inelegant, but it worked.

 

[andrew_stretch]

Black & Decker 100 Watt Laptop Power To Go Cordless AC/USB Power Supply
I saw these B&D units for sale for $10 today ($8USD) I figure I can't go wrong trying one out.
From other reviews that I've seen on Amazon, it has an AC out, so I'll try to run my DVX via the charger from it.

 

[andrew_stretch]

Test results for running my DVX off the D&D unit... as I'd expected, not very impressive.
I plugged my AC charger into the unit and used the adapter from that to power my DVX
it lasted 33mins with the LCD shut.
However, at $8, it's hard to complain - in a real pinch, remote location, etc, it could work.
I'll test it tonight running some basic reflector lights that I have as a super low budget emergency lighting package... I'll report results.

 

[dayuhanspace]

get a computer UPS instead,it has more sockets to plug in camera plus lights

 

[pmark23]

12V Gel Cell. Running equipment off of inverters is inefficient (not to mention a little crazy).

It would cost under $20 to buy a nice sized gel-cell battery, charger, and the cables you need to run the monitor for a good few hours.

If you want to get more efficient, tape together a bunch of Lithium C or D cells (10) -- this is what I'm doing for my monitor. It will last much longer than anything else you can buy.