Hi all,

I had a few questions about options for keeping your batteries charged while shooting on the move.

I'd love to buy more TB50s, but they seem to be in short supply right now, and my 3 sets are not enough for a full day of location shooting.

I've come up with two options to try and charge my batteries throughout the day on location.



1) I have this old profoto batpac which is normally used for powering studio strobes on location. I was wondering if it would be a suitable source to stick in the boot of the car and have it running the intelligent battery hub/charger?

http://profoto.com/us/products/b ... nspower/item/batpac

I've previously used it to charge laptops/phone batteries while on the go but am unsure if it would be suitable for the inspire 2 TB50s.




2) I know there are car chargers available for the intelligent battery hub. My question is, if you are starting and stopping the car every 30 minutes or so at different shoot locations, is this bad for the batteries? Surely it's better to charge them all at once rather than in stops and starts like that. Also, would each time you turn on the car engine add an extra cycle to the power counter, or does it only count as one cycle when you fully charge and/or subsequently discharge?


Thanks if anyone can shed any light on these options or any other options you might have used on the road.

I have a 12volt battery in the boot and an inverter to connect to the I2 battery hub. The battery is connected to the power outlet from the car and gets charged whenever i'm on the move.  Its large enough to charge all day via the hub, and it means if i stop the charger still has power to keep on charging. The inverter also makes sure the charge is constant and when the batts are fully charged the drain on the boot battery is negligible.

That sounds like a good solution Jon. Looks like it might be pretty similar to the batpac I was thinking of using so it's good to know that it works well for you.

Do you know if interrupting the charge increments the cycle counter?

I had an inverter installed in my car with 4 gauge wire going directly to the battery. Works great as long as you start the care every now and then. I used the inverter for a weekend (charing P4P batteries as well as iPad and phone) and had to get a jump start before heading home Sunday evening. I have had 2 P4 chargers going on this inverter before and no problem at all. I couldn't do that through the accessory plug due to the small wire size causing too much voltage drop.

Can anyone share a link to the inverters that they use?  I tried using a 300w cigarette lighter adapter inverter to charge Inspire1 batteries (similar to this one: http://a.co/ggBtaPf) and it would not charge the batteries.  I tried this in multiple vehicles, with and without the hub, and using TB47 and TB48 batteries.  I was also able to successfully charge smaller devices on the inverter so I know it was working.  Either it could not handle the amperage of an inspire battery charge or it was not outputting an AC signal that was acceptable to the battery charger.

So, like Hamish Campbell, I am still looking for a solution in order to charge while on a road trip.  I am assuming that a car stereo installation type place could put in a professional charging station that can handle it, but if anyone has a DIY solution that would be cheaper, or if you are knowledgable about AC/DC/Sign wave/electrical requirements and can lend your knowledge, it would be appreciated!