Battery Charging Station

woytovich

Observer
This thread is a spin off of my thread here on charging AA & AAA batteries. I have a number of device's batteries to keep charged: DSLR, mirrorless camera, GoPro, handheld ham in addition to AA/AAA batteries.

I'd like to build a charging station. Ideally a case with the chargers mounted inside with all of the wiring clean & organized. The options I have are:

1. inverter to supply 120v (all of these have 120v chargers out of the box). This option will require a power strip and I'll be dealing with some transformer bricks. (I have read that non-pure sine wave inverters can damage electronic devices.... is that true of chargers with brick transformers?)

2. 12v power. MOST of the chargers have a 12v option (will need to buy cables or in some cases 12v chargers) Here I'll need to use a series of cig sockets and let the cig plugs for each charger convert voltage as needed unless I can find an easy way to convert 12v to the required voltage for each device on its supply wire.

3. Similar to #2: find USB charge options for each device/charger. Here I'd be able to use the relatively compact 12v USB sockets & wires.

#1 seems to be the easiest in that it uses common items AND could easily be built to be powered via 12v to the inverter or 120v when available. (have I answered my own question?)

Mark
 
Last edited:

pluton

Adventurer
Agree: wart-type chargers (and camera battery chargers and Apple laptop power supplies/chargers) have always seemed to be insensitive to the square wave AC from inexpensive inverters.
I'd do it at 120VAC. USB would be nice, but I see no USB options for my Nikon and Fujifilm camera battery chargers. Last choice for me would be 12v cigar lighter plugs, just because.
 

Step-Hen

Observer
I see no USB options for my Nikon and Fujifilm camera battery chargers. Last choice for me would be 12v cigar lighter plugs, just because.

Look for SterlingTek camera battery chargers on Amazon...many of them come with 12V plugs in addition to AC. I've owned a few of them, and while they don't look and feel like something high quality, they've always worked perfectly for me, i.e. never fried a battery, and I get the same number of shots from a charge as I do with my Canon battery charger.
 

woytovich

Observer
I have used what looks to be the same charger branded "Wasabi" with good results for my Pen-F and I just ordered one for my Canon 5D MkII. I like the dual option of 120 & 12v
 

woytovich

Observer
So I think I'm going with 12v (cig plug) chargers for my camera, handheld ham and GoPro chargers. I also want to be able to move the charging station (I think it'll be a briefcase style box) inside and use 120v when available - I want as much flexibility as possible. That said I think I'm going to get a 120v > 12v power supply of some sort.
I was thinking of using a surplus PC power supply. This one I have will put out 12v and a load of amps (not that I'll need a high amp output).

So... anything I should be thinking about when supplying 12v to my chargers via a 120v>12v power supply?

Mark
 

ajmaudio

Adventurer
well... dont get a 12v psu that is capable of supplying significantly more current than you realistically require. Most of these units are most efficient at 70-85 percent load. A high efficiency computer psu isnt a horrible idea but perhaps just a strait psu from a supplier like mouser would be simpler and more compact? You can readily buy laptop style "brick" power supplies in 12v for 20-40 dollars depending on wattage. At that price and size you can have a spare is its really important.
 

Kerensky97

Xterra101
I have used what looks to be the same charger branded "Wasabi" with good results for my Pen-F and I just ordered one for my Canon 5D MkII. I like the dual option of 120 & 12v

I love those ones too, they're a generic China product (I've also seen under the name Powerextra, and others) The charger itself is a single unit and the battery charging part is swapable so you don't even need to bring multiple chargers for multiple devices, just multiple battery mounting plates to clip into the same charger.
http://amzn.to/2BnMxMR

All my OEM camera chargers now are proprietary and won't charge the off-brand batteries, but these Wasabi/Powerextra's will do both and don't need an inverter like the OEM charger would. Their batteries don't hold up as well as OEM (maybe 75-80% of the performance) but you can buy 6 batteries/3 chargers for the price of one OEM battery.

And because it's simple 12V cig plugs you can cut and splice your own connectors that aren't as bulky as cigarette ports, like a bunch of Anderson Powerpole Connectors or something.
 

Forum statistics

Threads
185,538
Messages
2,875,658
Members
224,922
Latest member
Randy Towles
Top