Hi Rainer thanks for the link. Yeah sorry for the confusion, that's what I actually use at the moment. It's not an inverter, it's a DC to DC converter for the laptop. I don't know what I was thinking about when I typed that. It's 12V DC in 19V DC out for the laptop. My laptop draws 3.5Ah maximum.
I currently get a good 6 hours imaging out of my setup.
I can't connect both tanks together unfortunately. They're the Celestron power tanks. All closed. No access to the battery terminals. Later on I'm thinking of replacing them by one big Battery. Got a couple of friends who use 100Ah batteries on the field. They're not that big either. Just heavy.
Would you know how much the Gemini draws? I also saw in a post very recently that it's bad to run the motors on 12V DC. It should be closer to 14V DC. They overheat. Is this correct? I though it's all good as long as you correctly balance the load. Mine are the high torque motors and I never had any overheating problems to date.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rsbfoto
Hi Marc,
Can you not connect both tanks in parallel and so you get a common ground for all ?
2x 17Ah is equal 1x 34Ah and you are certain that all goes down at the same time.
You are drawing from one tank far more power then from the other. The biggest consumer is your LapTop and that will make stop the Gemini and your Laptop first and the camera would continue to work. Makes no sense 
You talk about inverter. Do you mean you step up first to AC current (¿110v or 220v' I do not know what AC current you have down there  ) and then you step down again just because of your LapTop ? You are just killing Ah
You can get step up DC-DC converters for less then US $ 40.00 like this one
http://www.batteryspace.com/index.as...OD&ProdID=2737
I have one working for my Gemini as I feed it with 18volt.
There is a lot of possibilities to improve your power supply and simplify it ... |