Looking for afforable, portable charging option (AC Powerbank) to charge Mavic Air batteries while backpacking/camping without access to power supply. UPDATE 3: RAVPower very generously refunded me and actually sent me a replacement for free. Still only received 1.5-2 charges depending on how empty the batteries are before charging. Their customer service was fantastic and my one poor experience wth one of their employees definitely does not speak to their service overall. Update 2: So I tried one more time before sending in to Amazon returns and this time actually got  2 fully empty Mavic Air batteries to charge to 100%. Based on it's price of $190 CAD its actually now cheaper than buying 2 DJI batteries so maybe I'll keep it after all! Update 1: 27000mAh portable powerstation, from RAVpower arrived today. It charged ONE Mavic Air battery and only had about 10% charge left to be used to charge anything else. For $200 it’s not worth it at all. Returning tomorrow and just buying another DJI intelligent battery for the air. Disappointed.

I do not have experience with them, but I've read good things about the Energen 360 (new and expensive) and the M10 (pretty cheap - Best Buy has it for $99 today).  

Lots of people use the Mophie Powerstation AC.  Should charge several MA batteries - as should the Rav Power, so maybe something was wrong with your unit?  Not sure.
The Air batteries are only around 2375 mAh (curiously, DJI says they are 2970 mAh which is incorrect).  You should be able to charge 10-11 batteries on your RAV power unless the high current charging changes things maybe?

Either way I wouldn't want any less than 3 batteries for the MA regardless of charging solution.

CanadaMark Posted at 2018-5-29 09:39
Lots of people use the Mophie Powerstation AC.  Should charge several MA batteries - as should the Rav Power, so maybe something was wrong with your unit?  Not sure.
The Air batteries are only around 2375 mAh (curiously, DJI says they are 2970 mAh which is incorrect).  You should be able to charge 10-11 batteries on your RAV power unless the high current charging changes things maybe?

Hmm Id be shocked if the Mophie performed better as it has only 22,000mAh but that's great to know! Thanks!

Proteus88 Posted at 2018-5-29 11:02
Hmm Id be shocked if the Mophie performed better as it has only 22,000mAh but that's great to know!  Thanks!

Well they should perform the same, but you're right the Mophie has slightly less capacity.  I am maybe misunderstanding something, but if the RavPower is 27,000 mAh and the Air batteries are 2375 mAh, should it not be able to charge a bunch of them?  I am not sure if there is mAh loss during charging.  I have a smaller 12,000 mAh power bank and it works exactly as you might expect, charging my phone the amount of times it's battery is divisible into 12,000.   I wonder if the RavPower unit was defective?  Or maybe mobile charging doesn't work the way I think it does.

CanadaMark Posted at 2018-5-29 11:16
Well they should perform the same, but you're right the Mophie has slightly less capacity.  I am maybe misunderstanding something, but if the RavPower is 27,000 mAh and the Air batteries are 2375 mAh, should it not be able to charge a bunch of them?  I am not sure if there is mAh loss during charging.  I have a smaller 12,000 mAh power bank and it works exactly as you might expect, charging my phone the amount of times it's battery is divisible into 12,000.   I wonder if the RavPower unit was defective?  Or maybe mobile charging doesn't work the way I think it does.

Yeah I would have thought so, maybe it is defective after all. I thought I read that some charge is lost using the AC plug (only way to charge the Mavic Air) but information online is surprisingly scarce.

Update: RavPower has gotten in touch with me and says I should be getting much more charge out of the PowerStation. They have offered to replace the potentially defective unit so I will update once I test it out.

UPDATE: RavPower hasn't been that helpful. Repeatedly asking me to calculate power consumption. I used formula on website. This is wrong apparently but no alternative was given. I'm just going to return it with Amazon. Not worth the hassle for less than 2 Mavic Air charges.

I recently bought this power bank on Amazon  https://www.amazon.fr/NOVOO-Batt ... eywords=novoo+usb-c
This thing is really efficient and I brought it with me on a Sicilian road trip to test the possibility to recharge all my MA batteries. You can plug your AC adaptor on it and it does the job pretty well but you can only fill 2 MA batteries even if it had a 20100 maH capacity. I think it's due to the Watts the power unit delivers on AC, and it'll be the same with every brand.

Check out this portable power station. I have it and it can charge  at least 4-5 batteries.  It’s a very good one for traveling.  I love it!

https://www.aliexpress.com/store ... .0.0.615529f7WQHR9U

pashas_dad Posted at 2018-6-4 09:54
Check out this portable power station. I have it and it can charge  at least 4-5 batteries.  It’s a very good one for traveling.  I love it!

https://www.aliexpress.com/store ... .0.0.615529f7WQHR9U

How long does it take to charge two batteries at once??

Proteus88 Posted at 2018-5-29 11:18
Yeah I would have thought so, maybe it is defective after all. I thought I read that some charge is lost using the AC plug (only way to charge the Mavic Air) but information online is surprisingly scarce.

There are two losses if you use 120 Vac power plug with portable battery pack for charging a device.
Conversion from battery pack 12 (or 24) Vdc  to 120 Vac for power plug.
Conversion from power plug 120 Vac to 5, 6, 9, 12, 15, or 18 Vdc for power adapter / charger.

For inverter portion.
Load efficiency varies by amount of load because there is some power used by DC / AC inverter whether it is idle or at full capacity.  For example 600 watt 12 vdc to 120 vac pure sine wave inverter at 1/3rd load is 85% at full load is 90%.  A 1000 watt 12 vdc to 120 vac pure sine wave inverter simply says 95% at optimium efficiency (what ever that is).

Charger / Power adapter effiency is going to vary.  There are some that are simply step-down transformer and bridge rectifier.  Possibly including a Pie filter and voltage regulator.  Then you move up to high frequency versions, with torrid coils, that produce nearly pure DC output.

pashas_dad Posted at 2018-6-4 09:54
Check out this portable power station. I have it and it can charge  at least 4-5 batteries.  It’s a very good one for traveling.  I love it!

https://www.aliexpress.com/store ... .0.0.615529f7WQHR9U

Can you actually get that many charges? I'm surprised as the specs are lower than the RavPower...

SparksBird Posted at 2018-6-4 09:57
How long does it take to charge two batteries at once??

About 40-45 min at about 20-25% charge remaining.  


Here's a review of the device by Drone Valley on YouTube:

CanadaMark Posted at 2018-5-29 11:16
Well they should perform the same, but you're right the Mophie has slightly less capacity.  I am maybe misunderstanding something, but if the RavPower is 27,000 mAh and the Air batteries are 2375 mAh, should it not be able to charge a bunch of them?  I am not sure if there is mAh loss during charging.  I have a smaller 12,000 mAh power bank and it works exactly as you might expect, charging my phone the amount of times it's battery is divisible into 12,000.   I wonder if the RavPower unit was defective?  Or maybe mobile charging doesn't work the way I think it does.

mAh is directly related to voltage of the power source. Most power banks are outputting at ~5V whereas the MA batteries have an output of ~13V. If you want a like for like comparison of charge capacity between voltages, you should be using Wh.

Here's a converter: https://milliamps-watts.appspot.com/

pashas_dad Posted at 2018-6-4 15:59
About 40-45 min at about 20-25% charge remaining.  

Yup saw that video.  I wish they made a similar one for the MP instead of the large bulky one https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0789J ... ef_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

I will probably just end up getting something like this https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HEV ... _it#customerReviews and bring my three port multi charger.  

I use this loading 6 in one
means 4 mavic air batteries (about 1h)and 2 RC or other parallel... takes about 2h
it works perfect..
https://www.amazon.com/RCstyle-P ... e960e5bcb47cd3d4161

Heavenone Posted at 2018-6-5 02:17
I use this loading 6 in one
means 4 mavic air batteries (about 1h)and 2 RC or other parallel... takes about 2h
it works perfect..

Are you sure this is good?
Why is this so cheap?

A quick Google search brings up the current USB-C PD power banks.

This page mentions a few.
http://www.idownloadblog.com/201 ... ies-power-delivery/
Mophie powerstation USB-C XXL
Aukey USB-C Power Bank
Anker PowerCore Speed 20000 PD
RAVPower Power Bank PD

Here is a graphene one
https://www.kickstarter.com/proj ... ttery-usb-c-pd-powe

OK it works..is not getting very heat if charging 4 batteries...
but its up to you to buy or not...

It also has a CE certification.....

UPDATE: RavPower finally (through a week of service emails) helped me with the calculation and admits the 27000mah AC powerbank will only charge “1.4” mavic air batteries. Advertising the product to charge multiple drone batteries along with a photo on the website of this product charging a mavic air is a bit deceptive. Poor customer service (took a week to get that info out of them) and questionable advertising. Product returned. Definitely not worth buying for $200 to lug a big heavy AC charger around for travel for the only “1.4” charges.
Stating "with a huge 27000mAh capacity they’re good for several drone battery charges and many hours of flight. " Seems dishonest.

Proteus88 Posted at 2018-6-5 04:02
UPDATE: RavPower finally (through a week of service emails) helped me with the calculation and admits the 27000mah AC powerbank will only charge “1.4” mavic air batteries. Advertising the product to charge multiple drone batteries along with a photo on the website of this product charging a mavic air is a bit deceptive. Poor customer service (took a week to get that info out of them) and questionable advertising. Product returned. Definitely not worth buying for $200 to lug a big heavy AC charger around for travel for the only “1.4” charges.
Stating "with a huge 27000mAh capacity they’re good for several drone battery charges and many hours of flight. " Seems dishonest.

I would think you can buy at least 3 batteries for $200....no?  ( Ha, sorry I'm not French )

Not for back packing, but for portable power I use a 12vdc Deep Cycle Marine Battery and a 400watt inverter.  Saturday the 2nd of June I charged 4 x 4400mah 6S flight batteries, and 3 x P4Pro batteries (5870)........this translates to about 15 Mavic Air Batteries.......So,  when going back packing for day trips, at least you have charging power when you get back to base.

When I got home, I did infact need to charge the Deep cycle Marine Battery.....but that's overnight at 10amps.....and ready to go again.
Marine battery- under $100
400 watt inverter- $40 on Amazon
Flight battery iCharger 3010
P4Pro Charger stock......I also have the Power Edge 3 port battery and 1 port Transmitter charger.....this thing is awesome!!  3 Batteries AND the TX in 1 hr 15 min. All charged at the same time!!!!

Randy

This will be my  solution when camping and fishing, while traveling i might as well just splurge on one or two more batteries.

check this

LookAt_Wictim Posted at 2018-6-6 00:08
check this

Wow! If that is as good as it says I'd love to buy one. Just having trouble finding a way to buy and ship to Canada haha

Proteus88 Posted at 2018-6-6 05:52
Wow! If that is as good as it says I'd love to buy one. Just having trouble finding a way to buy and ship to Canada haha

try https://www.aliexpress.com/

https://www.amazon.com/Smatree-C ... s=smatree+mavic+air
Wow,  a little over 3/4 pound!    Listed as 12.8oz

I didn't see what KIND OF BATTERY is inside.....Lithium something I imagine since it uses the stock power supply to recharge.....

An alternative that you could make yourself. http://www.maxwell.com/products/ultracapacitors

LookAt_Wictim Posted at 2018-6-6 00:08
check this

If what this claims to be true, this is much better than the original charging hub as it can charge 3 batteries concurrently. Of course, being 3 feet tall and 8 feet long, this can be expected hehehhee

28wins Posted at 2018-6-5 02:27
A quick Google search brings up the current USB-C PD power banks.

This page mentions a few.

Hey dweeb where have you been? BTW have more than 100 charges on 4 different batteries on the suggested charger with no issues.  Funny you have 0 miles.  

Tried this setup out, if people have access to bigger packs or can find a car charger that is specifically designed to charge one battery only, there may be some hope...



Didn't work as well as I thought, in principle it could work,  and the test failed due to the below reasons...

1) The car charger pulls 6A @ 12V to power 1 battery charge and 1 USB port.  IF someone comes up with a single charger that pulls far less Amps for one battery (I suspect the 4A pull is to support the battery hub, a single battery would only take 3A at most.)  The Amp draw is far too high to charge a 11.55V 2375mAh MA battery.It did work whilst the pack was able to supply 12V, when the votage dropped (this is a guess as I had not hooked up a volt meter to the jump starter) the car charger LED flashed and the battery stopped charging a few minutes after that.

2) The car jump starter was rated at 8000mah and suspect the voltage drops below 12V and causes the car charger circuit to stop supplying power.

If anyone has parts like these laying around and can experiment, it may be worth investigating.  Will take apart the Car charger to see if there is anything that can be done to disable the USB port from being fed power.  I don't hold out much hope.

The first hurdle is finding a pack that can supply 12V at 6A, the second is for someone to bring out a car charger that ONLY charges the battery.

This really demonstrates how the IC design from the OE equipment was simply plugged into the car charger housing looking at the specs below....


And you can see the AC charger is clearly supplying a higher voltage that is needed, to support dual battery charging.


At a guess, based on the pinouts, there are 4 pairs of -/+ and the charging is done on a cell by cell basis, with a power rail provided for the intelligent charging circuit inside the pack.  Any IC engineers out there that could shed light, or maybe even powerbank manufactuers who can get a product out for us :-)

LookAt_Wictim Posted at 2018-6-6 00:08
check this

Got this a few days ago.  was able to charge 3 batteries simultaneously (20% remaining on each) and still have 3 LEDS left.  

a bit heavy but its worth it.   Charging will make your Mavic Air charger hot which might indicate fast charging is in effect.

All in all highly recommended as the price is equivalent to 2 MA battery but you get at least 6 charges.

How is everyone connecting their battery to a power pack? The video shows a usb or some type to the MA battery plug. I cant find a cable like that, maybe I'm not searching for the right thing?

If it were me looking to charge MA batteries, I would connect three 5V battery packs in series, then use a Voltage regulator to bring 15V down to provide DC input voltage to DJI's charging hub at required 13.2V.

PUMMY Posted at 2018-7-8 11:07
Tried this setup out, if people have access to bigger packs or can find a car charger that is specifically designed to charge one battery only, there may be some hope...

[view_image]

Has anyone tried solar panels while flying?

If the numbers are right, and it wants about 6A @ 12 V, I would need to ensure I have panels that would output at least 75W total?  Then I use the car charger at 12V to charge the battery?  If the dual charger wants 12V 10A, I would need min 120W solar panels to dual charge?

Proteus88 Posted at 2018-6-6 05:52
Wow! If that is as good as it says I'd love to buy one. Just having trouble finding a way to buy and ship to Canada haha

same issue been looking for 3 weeks for this to get it shipped to Canada, contact an eBay seller, the manufacturer and Ali is $120 shipping!
Ordered it today from here  https://www.yoycart.com/Product/567454855299/
will keep you posted on the results, about $280 CAD. Its the price of 2 batteries, i know but when im out camping, fishing and droning in the wilderness of QC - Ill need this! )))

Also i imagine DJI will offer something like this down the road, it took almost a year for the spark charger to hit the market.

So today, I use the Ecoflow River Power Station to charge in the back of my vehicle on the way to places (e.g. I'm at less than 100%, say 80% because that's where I store it but some buddies called to go riding).   This unit manages unto 3 amps rapid charge using the eWheels charger.   And it's lightweight and portable.

Well, they just announced a new, bigger version on Kickstarter, and for a limited time, it's at 42% discount (them moving to a 30% I think if you miss the early bird).

The new one is unto 1300Wh with an output of 1800W,  and charging the unit to 80% happens in about an hour with a full charge in about 2 hours.   Kickstarter buyers also get a lifetime warranty on the batteries.

For what it is worth, my River has been 100% trouble-free these last 3 years - I've used it mostly for charing drones in the field (DC to DC) and for AC power for buddies (like OneWheelers) or topping off on the way to rides.   As a previous backer, they offed me $100 off the new model (plus the discount) just to tell you how they do business. It's a good company in my mind.

If you are in the market for such a thing, here you go.   (I also grabbed the solar option because of storms here and power outages - turns out portable power is good for many things )

https://delta-the-new-standard-of.kckb.st/02a0d8af

Isn't this what you're all looking for?

https://store.dji.com/product/mavic-air-battery-charging-hub

Am I missing something?