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Power bank for SL2


Seymar

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I use one of these https://www.goalzero.com/shop/sherpa-power-banks-and-accessories/sherpa-100ac-power-bank/ to charge my SL batt out of the camera. It can also power my laptop at the same time. When the sun is out, I can re-charge it in a few hours by connecting it to one of their 28-watt solar panels. But we haven't seen the sun here since November.

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Sorry, but for charging the camera battery a power bank is not very interesting. It is usually much slower than charging from mains. But battery banks can be used to run the camera directly. Make sure it offers USB-C for the camera, not only legacy USB which is for phones. Choose the cable accordingly.

A Anker PowerHouse 200 offers all possibilities. A smaller device is maybe just usable with phones (and not strong enough to run the camera for a longer time. ).  But a device like the mophie above looks also good (it offers USB-C).

An additional thought: If you want to take a power bank on a plane, you need to make sure it has less than 26500 mAh. This is the limit of many airlines.

Edited by caissa
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26500 m AH, if it is delivered at 3.7 V, the typical full Li-ion battery voltage is just under 100 Watt-hours of energy.  That's a nice round number and could be used in an automobile.  My Anker 10000 (37 Watt-hrs) is tiny, and I have never been questioned.  Each SL battery is rated at 14 Watt-hours, so the little Anker should run the camera almost 3X as long as one battery.

The Anker 200 holds 200 Watt-hours, looks like much more than you need (unless you are three days up the Amazon and the skies are cloudy) and it is the size of a shoebox.

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Yes the Anker 200 is great for camping - so to say universal. A smaller device is enough if it is only for emergency fallback. But with small devices the question is always how much of the nominal capacity is usable. (Can it support video until it is empty, or will it falter long before that. Photography is much less demanding.) But the price difference is small, so I rather decided to be on the safe side. All of these are much more affordable than spare camera batteries. And as mentioned, on a plane 100 Wh is the limit, so the 200 is not for worldwide travel. (As you probably fly to the Amazon region, it is not even allowed on such a trip 🤕).

And as we know from electric cars (Tesla) accumulators live much longer if they are not fully charged and not completely emptied (15-80% is the desirable range) and with “slow” recharge if possible. One driver lately reached a record mileage of 1 million kilometers with a Tesla car (ok, more than one motor and the second accu pack, but still impressive. And mainly recharged on slow household appliances, not on “turbo” power stations.)

Edited by caissa
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35 minutes ago, caissa said:

And as we know from electric cars (Tesla) accumulators live much longer if they are not fully charged and not completely emptied (15-80% is the desirable range) and with “slow” recharge if possible. One driver lately reached a record mileage of 1 million kilometers with a Tesla car (ok, more than one motor and the second accu pack, but still impressive. And mainly recharged on slow household appliances, not on “turbo” power stations.)

Good point.  Most of us are careful not to let the battery go to zero, but it is natural to want to have 100% of capacity available. There is pretty reasonable guidance now that charging above 80% shortens battery life because there is spike growth at the cathode when you overcharge.  But there was a lengthy debate here when it was discovered that the suddenly popular NiteCore chargers stopped  after reaching a charge level of about 80%.  This would register as 4/4 bars on a CL but 80% or so on the more fastidious Ms.  There are other bad things that USB-powered chargers might do, like discharge if you leave the battery in the charger after they complete, but stopping a little bit early is probably OK.

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I don't know if QC3 and USB 3.0 PD are the same, but the latter is what you need to talk to the interface on an SL2.  A nice very portable supplementary charge solution would be the Anker 10000 PD, which costs about $50.  Unfortunately I picked up the previous model (just 10000, no PD) for much less.  It doesn't seem to work with the SL2 while the camera is running, but it does charge batteries using a Nitecore USB-driven charger externally.

 

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I'm very happy with the Zendure Slim 18W PD 10000 Power Bank Silver (10000mAh), which fits pockets easily and works well.

Their other offerings should work well too, but the Super Mini (which has a bit less volume at the same nominal capacity) doesn't do PD to my iPad pro.

Please be advised that the USB-C charging cables can differ wildly. The standard asks for a specific resistor to be built into the circuitry - that lets the devices negotiate voltage and current -, and quite some manufacturers do not adhere to the standards.

To determine what works usually is a matter of testing, as, for example, the new Raspberry Pi 4 1st iteration is off spec in a way that it only works with a non-standard-conform cables. 🙂

next

 

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  • 6 months later...

Question for the room here. Is there a ratio of mAh to shot? I see that the SL2 battery at 1860mAh is rated to 370 shots, but, not being an electrical engineer, I don't know if that means that one shot is equal to 5mAh.

Anyone have experience with this kind of math?

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Each shot takes a certain amount of energy, and energy is measured in watt-hours.  Watts, a unit of power,  are the product of volts  times amps .Energy is he product of power and  the time for which the power is applied.  Since most Li Ion batteries work at 7 to 8 volts, you will see them specified in just amp-hours, with the voltage understood to be 8 volts. Fancy batteries can supply 5 volts, 9 volts and even 15 volts, so they are specified in Watt-hours.  So the best characterization of the SL2 shots is that each takes 40 mWatt-hrs.

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5 hours ago, Mdol said:

I use a V-mount battery with a usb-c and D-tap output to power my SL2 together with a SmallHD 503 Monitor and a Tilta Nucleus follow focus on a LockCircle cage. 

Sounds cool - could you show us a picture of your setup?  Thanks.

Cheers,    -Peter

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On 8/15/2020 at 10:06 PM, Melampus said:

Sounds cool - could you show us a picture of your setup?  Thanks.

Cheers,    -Peter

 

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Thanks for posting those Mdol - very impressive rig. I'm curious, which V-mount battery are you using? Can you run the SL2 from it (as opposed to just charge the battery)? It was my understanding that in order to run the camera you need USB-C PD (Power delivery). I'm not aware of any V-mount batteries that does that, but could be wrong.

Thanks again and cheers,    -Peter

 

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1 hour ago, Melampus said:

which V-mount battery are you using? Can you run the SL2 from it (as opposed to just charge the battery)? 

 

https://www.fxlion.net/product-detail/50wh-v-mount-battery-nano-one/
 

yes It’s possible to drag power. But that’s very unstable. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. I have to reset the camera and sometimes it helps. 
 

I have the same issue with a mophie powerbank. It’s more stable but not reliable. 
 

it seems that the SL2 has a too much sensitive voltage measure, or my SL2 copy has an issue. 
 

you can see the little plug icon near battery icon :

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Edited by Mdol
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Hi,

This cage is very good. Very light and it's tight with the Leica. You have to be careful when you mount the camera in it, because there is not a lot of space and you could damage the paint (if you care about that). Otherwise, I'm not a big fan of the coupling plate system (between the cage and the support of the rods), but it works well. The rods are fine and also very light. You can also support the L to PL-mount adapter on it, which is great. If you need a cage for your SL2, I think this is the one.

If for photo only, the RRS L-plate is the solution, IMHO.

Do you do video ? I think the SL2 is an underrated camera about video. Images are so smooth, sharp but soft and pleasant (lenses has their role in it...).

Cheers, Marcello

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