I have a spare battery that wont fit into my current build, is there a way to turn it into some sort of portable battery to charge while away from outlets?

General Discussion
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I was thinking almost like a hard drive enclosure, but that isn’t the big issue. I’d have no idea how to set up a build so it could work with a battery on-the-go in addition to the built in one. Couldn’t find any threads about portable batteries, wondering if anyone has done something like this?

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this is what I’ll be working on from Monday onwards
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It’s super easy and cheap, I use it as my normal charger to save having to buy multiple chargers for my different voltage boards. All you need is a boost converter and a battery, you set the voltage and charging current and away you go. I’ve heard the efficiency is only about 60% but that’s good enough for me

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@pat.speed linked me to a boost converter, I found it on Amazon for the US. I got that, did the same as Pat using a watt meter also from Amazon, on the load side, plugged my battery in and set the boost converter to my charge voltage of 42v and 4 amps, and the thing works great.

I’ve been using it every day almost for the past month, and the only issues I’ve had was with an adapter cable I bought that had two male barrel connectors- the cable itself went bad so I just resoldered the bullets to a new cable.

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Super interesting, what do you have yours housed in? Got any pictures of the process or completed product? :slight_smile:

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Hey pat what do you use to keep your battery safe? Tubberware or something custom maybe?

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The battery on my board I use a custom aluminium case. I don’t use a spare battery I just use a power supply set to 24v. If I was to get a spare battery for charging I would get a 6s Lipo and store it either in Tupperware or some sort of metal case for extra protection.

Just make sure that if you are carrying a large metal object in a bag that it is wrapped in padding or something to protect your self if you fall. You don’t really want to break your ribs or spine from falling on your battery

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hmm, my spare battery is 10s2p. I just put together a new build so don’t really want to build another with this battery so my thoughts were to make it a spare. But yeah it is kinda big and clunky…

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similar situation here, I’ll be using a 10s4p liion lol

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It will work fine, maybe wrap it up in foam as if you were going to ship it in the mail and leave just the leads hanging out