External battery pack for Canon 70D

[ferrarofilms]

A couple of years ago I bough a Lanparte external battery pack for long time lapses, really started to using it this year and as it happens with crappy chinese products it died two days ago, one of the 4 battery 4V packs inside was dead. No warranty and repairing it was extremely expensive so I hooked again the external battery holder at the base that takes two E6 batteries or AA. The problem is that I really need 6hrs plus service when doing long timelapses and I've found no solution on line, all battery packs are 5v. Any hint?. Thanks

[kvbarkley]

No surprise that the warranty did not work out after "a couple of years".

The suggestion above about a car battery and inverter will probably get you farthest - You can look for a computer UPS which will have everything in one package.

[Waddizzle]

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@kvbarkley wrote:

No surprise that the warranty did not work out after "a couple of years".

The suggestion above about a car battery and inverter will probably get you farthest - You can look for a computer UPS which will have everything in one package.

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Everything, except for an AC adapter kit.  I agree.  You should be able to get hours and hours worth of use from your average UPS.  The good ones have online load calculators, so that you can size a UPS based upon your load requirements and what length of time that you need it available.  No need to guess. 

I would get one that could deliver 125% of what I needed, which would allow for battery degradation as they age over time.

[TCampbell]

6 hours may be a stretch for time-lapse even with the battery grip.  You *might* make it... but I think you'd be cutting it close.

The Canon AC adapter AC-E6 converts AC input power to DC output with 8v 3amp power.  A single LP-E6 battery provides 7.2v.  

Incidentally, the AC-E6 then attaches to a DC-E6 "coupler" -- the coupler simply has a sleeve-type DC plug that attaches to the AC-E6 and a dummy battery that inserts into the camera.

You could buy a DR-E6 coupler.  Canon sells that part separately (shop for Canon "DC Coupler DR-E6" at any authorized dealer or the online Canon store.)   Now you need a DC battery source that can supply about 7.5v of power.  You could do this with 5x 1.5v batteries (or 6x 1.2v rechargeable batteries).

Another option (which would provide reliable power for MUCH longer periods) is to use a 12v battery and get a "buck converter" to step down the voltage from 12v to 7.5v (e.g. search for "12v to 7.5v buck converter" (the converter costs less than $10).  

The catch with all of these is that if you use a battery pack, now you'll need to shop for the pack and you'll need to get the female sleeve-type connector to interface with the male sleeve-type connector on the Canon DR-E6 coupler.  A buck converter will just have 2 wires in and 2 wires out... so you'll need to get a project box and build your power adapter and add in the necessary connectors to attach to whatever battery source you want and the Canon coupler.

[TCampbell]

Ok, after further searching (and finding a lot of write-ups on various DIY projects ... mostly at CloudyNights.com, a message forum website where a lot of astronomers, including astrophotographers, hang out), I discovered that if you want to just buy a product that's ready-made (no DIY) then Orion Telescopes sells such a thing.

You need to search for "Orion 12V DC Power Adapter for EOS 60D, 7D, 5DMkII/III DSLRs"

I realize it doesn't say "70D" but the 70D requires the same DR-E6 coupler as the 60D, 5D II, 5D III, and a few other cameras. So that will get you the correct coupler and power requirements.

Now the bad news... it's $105.99 ... oh, and that doesn't include shipping (probably another $10).    So basically it's roughly a $125 solution.

The reaction from the astronomy community is that considering how cheap a buck converter and the necessary connectors should cost, this price is probably a bit steep (it should probably cost roughly half of what they're charging).  But I guess if they're the ONLY vendor selling a ready-made solution, they can probably get away with that price.

This type of photography has been a bit too much of a niche to get Canon's attention.  So I'm not entirely suprised that they don't make a power solution (I wouldn't imagine it would fly off the shelves), but I do notice it's becomming more popular and am starting to run into this question of how to run a camera away from AC power for very long periods of time (longer than the internal batteries can supply power.)

[ferrarofilms]

Tim, thanks for your response. 

Yes, external units are expensive and may die as the Lanparte. 

I got the dummy and I got a trustable old 12V ni-cd battery (really 14.4 and 16v fully charged) that I used on a DVCAM camcorder and I use now on a led light. I did it before (for a 700D with 18650 batteries) and I gess I am going to do it now again,  buying a 12V to 7.5 DC converter, put a 1-2 A fuse and try the duration. 

Meanwhile I did a star sky yesterday for 3.5 hrs (no viewfinder) and in the end the remaining battery read 3/4 bars, meaning I might reach 4-5 hrs of shooting.

again thanks

Carlo