Charging batteries in the field?

[Philistine]

What do most people do to charge batteries in the field (far away from electricity)?

I often go camping and I'd like to be able to recharge my batteries in the field. I've been thinking of getting a generator (found a good 1000W generator for $120 with great reviews) to do field charging. But for a bit less I could buy a car battery and a trickle charger. How many charges could I get from a car battery? Two, three, more?

Would it be more economical to just buy a couple more battery packs?

[MtnMan210]

another option although probably an expensive one would be to look into a new charger. Preferably one that is sold towards the plane crowd. That's what I'm using and it has both a wall plug for normal charging. As well as clips to charge off my car battery when I'm out in the middle of nowhere.

[Mortimer Snerd]

A car battery will give you loads of charges. the last comp I went to one guy had 6 chargers running off a single deep cycle battery. That's probably your best bet. I'd just charge off your car and fire it up occasionally to charge it back up.

[trailduster79]

I was heavy into racing electric trucks a couple years back and the only chargers we had back then were DC, so I do all my charging off a car battery. Works great, th charger and battery will fit under my hood so I cna park the truck and set the charger up and go crawl. When I get back I will have another battery ready to go.

[Pooflinger1006]

Right now I am using the intelicharger from duratrax, it works pretty good even for charging off the battery in my car. I just fire my car back up every little bit.

[ClaySlayer]

Just to give you an idea, I can run a trolling motor that pulls ~40A at max throttle for almost 3hrs using a medium size deep ccyle battery. With that said, it'll all depend on how much current the charger pulls but you should be fine for many, many charges...

[Gyyro]

I currently use a hyperion eos-5i ac/dc charger works awesome at home or off the car battery.

[dacaur]

I have a DC only charger. (triton Jr) Both at home and in the field when I'm not near my car I use a portable car jump starter. inside its got a 17ah battery, so in theory i can recharge my 3600mah battery 4+ times. Of course that would probably ruin the battery discharging it that low, but ive never had a problem recharging around 2000mah 3-4 times before recharging the jumpstarter.... Its much easier to lug around than a full on car battery... I can easily carry it with one hand, plus it has a built in light!

The other advantage is that if my car battery happens to die I'm prepared....

I do it this way because I had the jumpstarter already.... I have seen them for sale for as low as $25.... if you go that route make sure you check the Ah of the battery... some are as low as 6, some as high as 24...

The generator idea is cool, but it seems it would be a little inconvenient... and i would always be worrying about it getting stolen...

[ComingApart]

One of the guys I crawl with has a triton charger and a flight line box with a lead acid battery in it from his airplane setup.

Fairly small and portable. I don't know how many charges you can get from it, but he has no problem getting 2 to 3 in a day.

[rockwerks]

Originally Posted by Philistine

What do most people do to charge batteries in the field (far away from electricity)?

I often go camping and I'd like to be able to recharge my batteries in the field. I've been thinking of getting a generator (found a good 1000W generator for $120 with great reviews) to do field charging. But for a bit less I could buy a car battery and a trickle charger. How many charges could I get from a car battery? Two, three, more?

Would it be more economical to just buy a couple more battery packs?

IVe charged about 20 packs or more during a day on a car battery.

[Stormin2u]

The good old car battery and a quality AC/DC charger will serve you well as long a you run the car once in awhile.

[Mortimer Snerd]

Car batteries are lead acid, right? I'm thinking about getting one to put in the back of my van when I go crawling to charge off of. Wondering if my Hyperion EOS 0606i would charge it.

[dacaur]

Originally Posted by Mortimer Snerd

Car batteries are lead acid, right? I'm thinking about getting one to put in the back of my van when I go crawling to charge off of. Wondering if my Hyperion EOS 0606i would charge it.

yes it would, but if it were me I would just get a regular car battery charger. You generally dont want to charge a lead acid battery indoors. Once they reach out 80% charge, they begin to emit hydrogen sulfide gas, which is explosive. The battery itself could explode, in which case you will have sulfuric acid everywhere, better thats outside. Chances are you would never have a problem.. but there is always that small chance... I would just get a dedicated car battery charger and charge it outdoors (protected from rain of course)

[Mortimer Snerd]

Mmmmmmmmmmm....explosions..... Thanks for the tip. I was also considering doing that. Good tip on the hydrogen-I hadn't known that. I look forward to the day that someone invents a battery that can't explode, kill you, or burn your house down, no matter what.

[rdtshaw]

I run an Odessey drycell(27ah), and I easily get 20-30 charges for my 1320mah lipos at 1c charge. (usually charging lipo's with 20-30% remaining power) It's a sealed battery, you can mount it any direction you want. I used to have it in my zuk 1:1 rig as my 2nd parallel battery for winch, sound system, backup start, etc.

I have a hyperion 1210i and it pulls 1.45A while charging(my crawler lipos anyhow) . I use my hyperion to charge my drycell when I get back to the house. works great. the odessey cell is the PC925 http://www.powerstridebattery.com/pr...9&idcategory=0 runs about 165 + shipping. I have no idea about this vendor, just did a quick google. It's small and not that heavy, and it recovers well from a deep discharge.

Cheers,

Rob

[rambuller84]

You could probably go camping all weekend on a single fully charged car battery that isn't in your car.. That is what I take if I go to a friends house with a lot of electric stuff. I pulled the brand new battery out of my old Dodge before I sold it and I use it to run both of my chargers for 10+ hours at a time. I know I had 2 chargers hooked up to my truck a few weeks ago and it was fine.

[SeanD]

When I take my crawler "on the road" i.,e, camping, I take along my power inverter that plugs into my cigarette lighter and plug my charger into that. Works perfect. I guess the only thing it eleiminates is the need to run the charger directly off the battery - which might be a pain if your charger is not able to do so

Sean

[Philistine]

Originally Posted by dacaur

I have a DC only charger. (triton Jr) Both at home and in the field when I'm not near my car I use a portable car jump starter. Its much easier to lug around than a full on car battery... I can easily carry it with one hand, plus it has a built in light!

The other advantage is that if my car battery happens to die I'm prepared....

I like this idea. The jump starter sounds like a great option and also having it as a backup for my car battery would be great. When I go camping I'm usually far away from any services.

Originally Posted by dacaur

The generator idea is cool, but it seems it would be a little inconvenient... and i would always be worrying about it getting stolen...

I am considering the generator as the one I'm looking at isn't very expensive ($120 shipped), its small (15"x17") and it'd come in handy while camping.