Quote:
Originally Posted by Leo.G
Thanks Bob that's quite an affordable solution for a light weight LiFePo4 battery. Sorry, Lithium battery.
Any idea what sort of run time with a normal EQ skywatcher mount (EQ5 pro, laptop computer and minimal draw camera?
I have some new 8-AH lithium Aldi 20 volt packs I could run through a buck converter to get the required voltages, not sure how long it would drive my gear but I have a couple of new units and it would be worth me looking into, already having the battery packs, I could wire a couple up in parallel in my dedicated battery box I bought new and have never populated.
Plus I could try them in the yard where I have AC power available as a back up. I'd have to fit a 19 volt outlet for the laptop, a 12 volt regulated output for the mount and 5 volt for the camera but it works straight off USB I believe. It's minimal work to set it all up and try it.
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Hi Leo,
Most Buck converters have around 90% conversion efficiency. Let's call it 80% because the voltage conversion is quite big.
80% x 20V/12V x 8AH = ~10AH
A HEQ5-PRO draws about 1A while tracking, 2-3A slewing. The power draw depends how much slewing you do compared to tracking. If you don't want to drag the battery below 50% count on about 5 hrs. You said you have multiple packs. If you connect two packs in parallel, you will roughly double the run time to 10hrs.
I have a pair of 7AH SLA batteries connected in parallel that runs my Tak EM200 for a longish but not an all night session.
Joe