wear-hards,
I have been exploring all of the power options I can
find out there. Seems that most people are using the
NP-F960 camcorder battery packs, which are rated at
7.2v 5400mah. I am looking at some other alternatives.
1) I have found a someone who already has a charging
circuit which will provide two very desireable
features. The system can operate while charging,
and I can query the charging module via serial
connection to retrieve the battery data. He even
has example source code for querying the status
of the battery (voltage/current/temp).
a) He is recommending that I go with NiH battery
packs, and he can program charging for sanyo
9.6v 4500mah battery packs. He says he can
program the charger to operate with two packs
in series, that's 19.2v 9000mah. It would be
heavier than the NP-F960s but I would never
have to change batteries again because I will
be able to just plug in and operate/charge
like a laptop. I am trying to get the weight
and dimensions of the battery packs and the
charger circuitry. Battery packs are $115
each and the charger is only $55. He will
likely charge me extra for the custom
programming but I think it will still only
be $350 or so for everything.
b) I am trying to convince this same guy to do
an equivalent system using li-ions cells.
He is hesitant and is trying to convince me
to go with the above. That's not surprising
because li-ion is more complex charging and
must be right or they can explode. He said
he can do a li-ion system but says it will
be expensive and will take a couple of
months before he can deliver. At last word
I told him that I may be willing to cough
up the necessary bucks even if it's $500+
for the system I want, which would be the
same as the above with smaller and lighter
li-ion battery packs, long running time,
ability to query the battery status, and
eventually tapping into the linux APM bios
to work exactly like a laptop.
2) ID Technology has some very interesting li-ion
battery packs. They are 7x3x1 inches, weigh
0.86 pounds, and are 14.4v 3200mah. I could
use two of these in series for 28.8v 6400mah,
they would be slimline and nicely distributed,
less than 2 pounds, and they also have LEDs on
the battery packs that indicate the power status.
Charging would still be offboard, and there
would be no way to programmatically query the
battery status. I have no idea what the price
is but I'm sure they are more than the sonys
and the chargers are probably more expensive.
http://www.idxtek.com/lithion.html
Any thoughts on this?
-- Doug
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