GH2 XPAL 18000 External Battery Unit Tested/Demonstrated

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itimjim

Active member
For anyone interested...

I bought a Panasonic DC coupler DCC8 off eBay from Japan a couple of weeks back, with the intention of trying hooking it up to a recently purchased XPAL 18000 external battery pack (Li-Poly) which is nice and light and quite well featured.

I did a little video demo to show the unit with the GH2 tonight. Again, if you're interested....


Hope it's useful to someone. Any questions, do ask.

Tim
 
Just a word of caution. The battery that you are demonstrating outputs 9-12V out of the jack that you connected to. What it really means is when fully charged it is 12.4V (fully charged 3 cell Li-Ion or polymer), discharged about 9V. The camera circuitry is designed around ~8V. It is risky to connect 12V to a low voltage device. While it might not get damaged immediately, the chance of a delayed failure due to stress is real. If you call Panasonic support, they most definitely not approve of this and will not repair under warranty.
 
Appreciate the feedback. All I can go off is the product bumf, which says "XPAL Power integrates a minimum 12 safety logics into every cell for maximum protection of the battery, device and user. In addition, XPAL utilizes a mathematical circuit control unit with built-in proprietary software to control and regulate temperature, voltage and current.". Which says to me, I'm not going to blow up your expensive gadget. However, I may run some tests with a volt metre while connected for piece of mind. Thanks.
 
I agree with Alex. The camera may not even turn on when voltage exceeds 11V, but the stress on the protection circuit may remain and do damage.
If this battery is to be used it should be used at 18V with a 9V voltage regulator. Those are selling for $5.00 on eBay.
The battery looks great but is quite pricey.
 
Cool vid, and looks to be a nice way to get a days worth of charge, but for me it's not going to work, I usually work off a rig and need everything very tidy. My question is. Why not buy the knock off battery, from what I understand, your unable to get a battery level with either setup. So wouldnt it be cheaper and quicker to buy some knockoff batteries instead? or am I missing something?
 
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