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Portable electrical system


Al Downs

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I am starting to think about all the electronics I find myself using in the cockpit and am not in favor of plugging things into the on board system. Ipad, ADS-B, multiple cameras, etc.

 

Electronics are way out of my comfort range so I thought maybe I can get some ideas here.

 

I would like to run power cable for the things I use so I can just plug the camera, Ipad, etc into a power supply like a small battery to run them. I have no idea how much power these sorts of things use. I can make a small box with all the necessary outlets to plug into. Can the power supply be something like a portable drill battery? NiCad or Lithium?

 

Weight is a concern as I would also like to use this power supply in a65 hp none electric system J3 Cub to run the hand held radio. Always seem to have dead or low batteries when using the Cub. I would like it to be very portable so I can move it easily to a different plane but keep the cable in place.

 

Your thoughts will be appreciated.

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Have both : RAVPower 16750mAh 4.5A Dual USB Output Portable Charger $25.00 Amazon

And an Anker Astro E5 15000mAh External Battery Pack 2-Port 3A Output (Amazon but no longer available)

 

Both work well, in fact better than well. At times it looked like 4 a legged octopus thru the plane.

Equipment powered by these Battery Pack's (4 units at a time)

2 – iPad Mini's (one running Foreflight (sometimes Garmin Pilot) and one with Garmin Pilot)

1 – GoPro (only needed to change out micro sd card)

2 – iPhone's

1 – Dual GPS unit. Backup but powered up when in flight.

They had so much capacity that usually changed out one phone when it was fully charged to charge another.

 

Everything was fully charged at time of landing.

Average flight time – 4 hours

 

No long have the plane, gone for a year, still looking for replacement that meets our requirements.  But will still keep these battery packs.

 

post-878-0-62427400-1485386477_thumb.jpg

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I purchased a lithium battery which is in a balistic nylon pack with 12V and 120V charger, battery jumper cables and multiple cables to attach to computers and cell phones.  The battery is about the size of a small paperback book but it has surprising capacity for it's size.  I have started a car and a truck and a Flight Design with this little power pack and it showed no loss of charge.  The battery weighs 3 lbs. and I keep it stowed in my cargo bay.  This would run the avionics for a long time or will be a good thing to have if I'm a long way from home and have a "no start" due to my Odyssey battery going dead".

https://www.google.com/search?q=AL-JP16+multi-function+jump+starter&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjLn4O-v97RAhUM3YMKHVbjDUgQsAQIOw&biw=1366&bih=609#imgrc=u60VBXRUJxn85M%3A

 

Update.  I see that Harbor Freight is advertising this type of lithium battery pack on sale.

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