What would be a good external battery for miscellaneous equipment?

Factual Questions
1

Q1:

Hey, what are your opinions on something like a mobile battery, to carry about misc equipment such as laptops, tablets, or portable 12v ‘splash’ lights. (floodlights?)

The reason being that my laptop’s onboard battery runs out in about 2-3 hours after a full charge, and sometimes is drained in only 30 minutes because the computer sometimes decides to snatch every single available resource and drown them in a gigantic tsunami of battery power in either a heat-related suicide or an attempt to create the world’s most inefficient portable space heater.

This usually happens after leaving the laptop in a bag after putting it to sleep, usually charged to 87 or 90 percent. It is nice and cool in the bag and most of the computers are probably not making much heat.

But when I take it out, the bag is emitting quite a lot of heat noticeable from the outside, and the laptop is so hot that the metal could probably cause a minor burn (the chassis is metal) if touched for too long, and even better, this is usually at least 5 or 10 minutes AFTER the battery had already shut down. I wonder how hot it was when it was still running?

Since it has been doing that from day one, I doubt it’s anything software-related, and it runs fine when in use, aside from a bunch of random BSODs but I don’t do anything mission-critical on it anyway so whatever.

Anyway, what sort of battery would work goodly in that scenario? I would want at least 4-5 hours of working from it, AND support for other devices, such as a phone, some splashlights and possibly some other stuff.

Q2: How does law enforcement tell the difference from a fictional literature and a genuine thing? So for example, let’s say someone made up an extremely detailed and realistic, but entirely fictional murder scenario and posted it somewhere on the internet, such as creepypasta or reddit?

What about if the material was posted about a real event, especially one that was yet unresolved AND the material was very coherent and seemed very plausible that it could match the unresolved events?

And if the fictional story was told from the view of a victim and the authorities did investigate only to find it was ‘fake’, could the “victim” get charged for making a false report?

2

Are you saying you put the laptop in the bag at ~90% battery charge, and later when you take it out, the laptop is hot to the touch and the battery is completely discharged (~0% charge)?

That’s not normal. Something is causing your laptop to wake up from sleep mode. In my experience, the most likely culprit is the mouse and trackpad - you need to configure Windows so that the mouse does not wake up the computer. Otherwise, if you put the laptop in the bag and then move your wireless mouse, for example, the laptop wakes up.

See this "How to prevent your computer from waking up accidentally article, and other similar online articles.

3

I totally agree with scr4. You have some other issues to deal with first.

But I will also share with you my experiences. We sometimes have power outages and I wanted to be able to at least play DVDs and listen to music while the power is out. I keep two deep-cycle marine batteries on a battery maintainer (after charging them properly with a specialized charger). Rather than use an inverter, which is pretty inefficient, I bought an inexpensive no-name cigarette-lighter adapter for my laptop. It cost less than $20 and uses digital switching, so it’s pretty efficient. Works great and my laptop will run for almost a whole day on one of the batteries.

Out of curiosity, I tried it on a 7AH sealed lead-acid battery and it ran for several hours (3-4 hours). I imagine you could choose any standard SLA battery with the capacity of your choice as a balance between portability and run-time. You will need a cigarette-lighter adapter to connect to the battery, as well as a means of recharging the battery, but I’ll let you figure that out.

4

OK, I forgot to state the obvious. You can get a small inverter to run directly off a SLA battery, but then you are converting direct current to alternating current and then BACK to direct current to power your laptop. This is a big waste. A small, digital switching car adapter is a much better route. The adapter is also much smaller and lighter than an inverter and laptop power brick.

5

What kind of power do those flood lights consume? They can easily eat a large majority of your battery capacity.

6

Okay, I forgot to say that it needed to be somewhat portable, and a giant massive acid battery probably won’t work, as I don’t feel like carting around 20 kg everywhere I take my laptop.

I mean, even a small 12AH SLA battery weighs about 3.6 kilograms, which is quite weight for such a small capacity. What about some sort of lithium battery? They usually have much better energy/weight ratios at the cost of being slightly more expensive.

Hereis a lithium battery, which is 30AH and only 3 kilograms, compared to the heavier and “weaker” SLA battery.

I don’t like the idea of an inverter, it seems a bit dangerous to be carrying around 230v just floating around like that, being carried by someone. Plus it makes tonnes of heat, noise, possibly toxic radiation and interference.

There is an inverter on my car, and turning it on completely blocks out the radio and makes a bunch of horrible noise from the radio, along with some strange “fumes” which make me feel uncomfortable but are probably just imagined/placebo. The one I’m using (probably the same for all of them) just feels strange and “off” or even “evil” about using it. I don’t mind it when it’s unplugged, though, so it’s not the appearance of them alone.

I will read it, but sometimes I can get to the bag before it is drained, and when this happens all comes up is just a black screen, with no input or responses. This continues until the battery shuts off or I manually power it off and restart it.

Also, the away-from-bag-time is usually about 40 minutes.

These are mainly only to make the people reading this “cast their minds away” and look at something more than USB power banks and things like that. I doubt I will ever use one at all.

7

So there aren’t lights but it was listed as a requirement?? We need to know if you’re expecting 4-5 hours at 50 Watts or the same duration at 200 Watts.

I need a car that gets 35mpg and can tow 10000lbs. Only I won’t ever tow anything.

8

Okay, I mean I might use a portable spotlight, but by then the battery would probably have been recycled, broken down, and rotted into the materials used to make a spaceship to carry humans to Mars.

OK, more seriously. My most common usage would be a laptop only, so maybe around 60 or 70 watts, however a batter that could last at least 3 hours on 100W would be grand, as long as it weighed no more than 10kg.

Actually, how much is 10 kilograms to carry around as one small square? I know a laptop is around 1.5 kilograms, but that is reasonably spread out across it’s length and width, and a battery is about the same L/W, only much taller and heavier.

9

Here you go; a small portable gasoline generator that will handle up to a thousand watts. That should cover your notebook computer, floodlights and your “other stuff”.

10

No, it ABSOLUTELY CANNOT be any sort of combustion engine, motor or anything like that. Solar and portable wind machines would be fine if they existed how I needed them, however gasoline/gas/diesel/other generators are definitely out. You can’t take a generator inside a shopping mall, inside your house, or inside an elevator, bus or train.

11

3 hours * 100W = 300 wH. You probably need at least a 12V, 30 amp-hour battery. (12V * 25 Ah plus margin for inefficiency.) A sealed lead-acid battery of this capacity should weigh less than 10 kg. If you want something lighter, get a lithium iron phosphate (LiFePo-4) battery of similar capacity. Of course you’d also need a 12V power adapter (car adapter) for your laptop.

12

Why not just buy a second laptop battery and swap out as needed?

13

You need to run floodlights on the bus?

14

I’ve got a small fleet of BB2590 batteries and a decent collection of accessories. The specs are pretty nice, they’re mil-spec and there’s a pair of ‘gas gauges’ so you know how much life is left at a glance. They are usually available used/surplus/NOS on ebay.

1.4kg
Two 14VDC sections at 7.5Ah each
112 x 61 x 127mm

15

I appreciate that SLA batteries are much heavier than lithium-ion batteries, but here are some practical considerations (at least on a general basis):

  1. SLAs are much cheaper for comparable voltages, though capacity will be less.

  2. There are lots and lots of 12 VDC devices (laptop chargers, spotlights, fans, inverters, etc.) readily available. This makes it advantageous to standardize on 12 VDC rather than 5 VDC, 18 VDC, or some other voltage. The range of available lithium-ion packs at 12 VDC is limited.

  3. Charging systems for 12 VDC SLAs are also more readily available. Chargers for other battery types are more specialized.

Like other posters, I think you need to prioritize your requirements: run-time, maximum load, weight, cost, availability of peripheral equipment, and so forth. There simply isn’t any portable battery system or power supply that optimizes every variable.

BTW, there are many portable inverters that don’t have the performance issues you mention.

16

SLA is also safer. Li-Ion batteries tend to catch fire when misused.

The BB2590 looks like an interesting option though. But it’s pretty expensive new, and buying used/surplus batteries seems risky.

17

I think it is pretty standard to leave out crucial details when outlining the crime to the press. Especially on a high profile case, the police get lots of nuisance confessions. This lets them weed out the fiction.

Dennis

18

Errr. I thought that most forms of lithium batteries were generally safer than LA? I haven’t yet decided on a specific form of lithium, but still most of them are quite safe.

And how is using the battery as a battery misusing it? I thought batteries were supposed to be used as batteries, not any other way around?

19

It’s the other way around.

Misuse include but are not limited to mechanical stress (shock, pressure), over-charging, and allowing it to overheat.

Some suspect the cause of the Samsung Note 7 fires is physical pressure on the batteries, because the phone had too little clearance around the battery (cite).

20

I am still stuck on how you think a $300+ battery of 30 amp hours is just a little more than $20 for a 7.5 to10 amp/hr one. (yeah, they can be bought at a lot of places )

I also note that you said 230v so I assume you are not USA based.

So, you are mostly away from your car, no regular house power for normal chargers, or public transport to the beach into a cave?

If you have that kind of $$$, get a good laptop with a few spare batteries for it & for your toys.

YMMV