Charging Batteries in cars

Mattpitts74

Mattpitts74

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I've been struggling to come up with a good reliable solution to charging camera batteries in my car.

I was away on a two day event taking photos without power and I have been using USB battery chargers plugged into the cigarette lighter of my car.

But this seems very slow and last time I wasn't convinced that the battery was even fully charged.

I have found several old threads floating around the internet about using 12 volt inverter, but they are all quite old articles.

Does anyone here have any suggestions or experince using an inverter, it would also be useful to run a laptop I presume.

Any advice would be very much appreciated.
 
You can pick up 12-240v inverters from Halfords/online. I've got one in the car for when we go on long drives so I can power DVD players in the back. They've always worked fine for me and you can just plug in your standard mains battery charger. Just remember to disconnect them before your car battery dies if you're not running it while charging :0)
 
Have you thought about a power bank? I have a couple for charging my GoPro and Kindle when I'm away from supplies.

https://www.7dayshop.com/power-banks

Or just get more batteries :)
 
I have been using an inverter for years, it has been used at various times to power a portable dvd player a laptop a phone and many different battery chargers
it is a very useful bit of kit just be sure to get one that cuts out when the car battery gets low.
 
I worked out that more batteries solved the same issue for me - even a grip works well as you can use (in some) AA batts.
 
I doubt that an inverter will be any better than a decent quality charger designed for car use. It's about voltages, your camera batteries are say 7.2V and may need somewhere over 8V to charge them. The car battery is 12V and the alternator typically over 13V so there is plenty of overhead, stepping 12V up to 240V (inverter) just to then step it down to 8V is a bit of a waste.
 
sirch said:
I doubt that an inverter will be any better than a decent quality charger designed for car use. It's about voltages, your camera batteries are say 7.2V and may need somewhere over 8V to charge them. The car battery is 12V and the alternator typically over 13V so there is plenty of overhead, stepping 12V up to 240V (inverter) just to then step it down to 8V is a bit of a waste.
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Thanks for the input, I appreciate the point about quality chargers, but most of the chargers I have seen are usb and cheap, do people have some recommendations for decent chargers for Fuji batteries np-126?
 
+1 for the neewer usb charger.
I have 2 for olympus bls1 and bln1 batteries, take about 1.5hrs to get to full charge.
 
I sometimes use a cheap inverter (plugged into the cigarette lighter socket). It is only an E Bay cheapie but provides enough power to charge my Laptop at normal rates as well as my 1DX batteries. I just plug the Canon/Toshiba mains charger into it and it works fine.
A USB 1 or 2 only provides about 2.5 watts and is at 5 volts so needs to be stepped up = even lower power. My £7.50 E Bay inverter provides 150 watts at 220V so I just use the normal mains chargers.

One point to consider is that they can get in the way when you are driving (as with my car) so check there is plenty of room around the socket so that you are not fighting cables in an emergency!
 
Mattpitts74 said:
but most of the chargers I have seen are usb and cheap
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As @johnf3f notes above it probably doesn't help to go via USB because that is spec'd at 5V at 0.5A, I have car chargers that take 12V input directly and hence I assume are higher power, a quick goolge for "np-126 car charger" returns several that plug directly into the car socket. No guarantees though
 
Mattpitts74 said:
Thanks for the input, I appreciate the point about quality chargers, but most of the chargers I have seen are usb and cheap, do people have some recommendations for decent chargers for Fuji batteries np-126?
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I have an X-Pro dual battery charger for my X-E2 batteries that has 230V and 12V direct inputs. I've never used the 12V input, but the car adaptor for it must be knocking around somewhere. Bought from Amazon - http://amzn.to/2puFY1u
 
Alastair said:
I have an X-Pro dual battery charger for my X-E2 batteries that has 230V and 12V direct inputs. I've never used the 12V input, but the car adaptor for it must be knocking around somewhere. Bought from Amazon - http://amzn.to/2puFY1u
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I've the same one, and that just gave me a /facepalm moment. Tidying up my box of cables at the weekend and could not for the life of me think why I had a car cable and what it related to, so recycled it. Now I know!

That said, I'd just buy more batteries. £13 for the white xpro batteries for Fuji, and they work just as well in my opinion as the OEM, so just as easy to stock up.
 
Worth remembering that an inverter uses extra power over a properly designed 12V input charger.

Inverter losses vary between 50% and 80%, with good designs, before you get to the losses from your mains type charger. This isn't necessarily an issue in most cases but could be a problem if you charge with the engine off.
 
Sejanus Aelianus said:
Worth remembering that an inverter uses extra power over a properly designed 12V input charger.

Inverter losses vary between 50% and 80%, with good designs, before you get to the losses from your mains type charger. This isn't necessarily an issue in most cases but could be a problem if you charge with the engine off.
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Good point! Also remember that some cars (mine!) shut off the USB port a short while after removing the key. I think it may do the same with the cigarette lighter socket.
 
If charging takes too long then in my opinion use a grip and then buy some extra camera batteries, so whilst one set is charging on the USB port in the car you can have another two sets ready and on the go in the camera. A decent pair of camera batteries in a grip will last a fair length of time. How many pairs of batteries would you need for a shooting session?
 
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