Charging Phantom 2 Batteries with Pure Sine Wave Inverter

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Not sure if this is the right place to post this.

Wondering about charging Phantom 2 batteries with the DJI charger plugged into a pure sine wave inverter. I have a Powerbright XTW3000 (http://www.powerbright.com/XTW3000-12.html)inverter hooked up to an Optima marine battery. As I'm not very well versed electrically, I'm not sure if the charger would play well with it. In my experience, things can be a bit finicky when plugged into it. For instance, my Profoto Acute 2 stobes work extremely well, but my Macbook Pro can act a bit odd at times. If it would work, it would be really handy while flying far away from any AC outlets. Leave it in the hatch of the car to do its thing while I continue to fly.

Any thoughts?

Cheers
 
Re: Charging Phantom 2 Batteries with Pure Sine Wave Inverte

I have wondered the same thing. I have a Paul Buff Mini-Pak that I've used with Alien Bee strobes (of course!!), as well as a few other AC supply tasks along with a few times charging from the USB ports on it.

My concern would be whether the power pack could supply enough current for the hour it takes to charge the LiPo. In "normal" use, the load on the Mini consists of intermittent heavier draws of current that last for a few seconds.....then some "recovery time", then another cycle...etc..

The next time I have an opportunity to top off a partially dis-charged LiPo, I'll try to make a test of this....all the while keeping a close watch on the set-up. I really don't expect to see any problems with this, save my concern about the capacity of my Mini-Pak to refresh a big LiPo quickly.

I just looked at some of the specs for both of these units and see a couple of "ball park" figures. The Paul Buff site says that the Mini-Vagabond can supply 5-6 amps to recharge a strobe or several. I also see that the DJI recharger is rated at 4 amps, so it would seem that these might work out OK....again...not sure about the time factor.

I followed the link you posted about your Pure Sine Converter and it looks like a major step up from my Mini-Vagabond. The specs for it state 3000 watts..which if I remember Ohm's Law correctly, figures out to be about 25 amps...which I think should be way more than enough. BUT...as you wrote, sometimes there are "other factors" that can throw the math into the trash..
So..again...some actual testing would be in order. I sure don't see that anything real serious could go wrong as long as you kept a close watch on the operation....and it might be a good idea to have a fire extinguisher handy...!

A second thought I've had about doing this, would be to wire up a 12V connector so that I could recharge my Mini from the car battery at the same time the Mini was charging the LiPo. Reminds one of the song about, "the leg bone connected to the hip bone, etc!!"
 
Re: Charging Phantom 2 Batteries with Pure Sine Wave Inverte

Thanks for your reply.

I guess that my concern is with melting a charger and battery... I don't know enough about these things outside of my strobes being fine. I can run a 2400 and 1200, both at full power and get over 150 full discharges. I don't know what the upper limit actually is as I lost interest in going any further. But during the recycle, both pull close to 15amps for a couple of seconds. So by the sounds of things, 4 amps should be fine - but for how long?
 
Re: Charging Phantom 2 Batteries with Pure Sine Wave Inverte

Thanks to both posters for some good info. Since the load determines the current draw, I think that having a husky power supply would always be the safest and most satisfactory way to go. It is when the power supply can't produce what the load (Phantom charger in this case) demands, that things start to overheat, explode and other undesirable things start to happen!

I have no idea if using a Non-Pure Sine wave inverter would make any difference in the Phantom battery charging. I do know that things can get a bit "squirrely" (technical term!) for some devices with the more common....and inexpen$ive...inverters.

And...what a very interesting description about the fitting of that trailer...lots of good solutions there and I'm sure being able to keep things packed up, sorted out and ready to go has been a great relief to you....nice work on that..! And...a very complete write up as well. I loved knowing that it's the guy with the larger multimeter who get the title of "Expert"...!
 
Re: Charging Phantom 2 Batteries with Pure Sine Wave Inverte

Sound like it would at least be safe enough for me to try! Here's what my set-up looks like. Weight is a major issue - close to 100lbs...
 

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