Battery pack with 12v socket plug in?

DavidUK

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Is there a good battery pack which will simply plug into a 12v socket and the itself has a 12v female socket for the dash cam's plug to go into?

Any reason this one wouldn't work with DDPai Mini2?: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/B014182YDM
One review says this one doesn't work while it's charging!?

Or is there something better?

Don't want hard wired due to car warranty issues, and it's just for the parking mode. My power sockets switch off a few minutes after the car is locked. Seems like a good value option to expensive hard wired packs?
 
It is an unwise idea to charge a lithium-ion power bank at the same time it is being discharged because it puts a great deal of stress on the battery cells. The reason the Nextbase External Battery Pack you linked to will not allow you to use it while charging is because the engineers who designed it were wise enough to include circuitry to prevent the practice.
 
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Not hard to float a 12V AGM or SLA battery switched with a relay to get essentially uninterrupted power, but it requires some soldering and some way of mounting and securing the battery. My original "powerbank" was one of these batteries with a ciggie lighter socket strapped on with electrical tape- that was about 15 years ago.

Phil
 
Looking in the item FAQs it appears it can be used whilst charging...

Screen Shot 2016-10-15 at 11.56.48.png
 
It does appear that the battery CAN be charged while you drive and power a connected device at the same time. However as @Dashmellow said above it isn't really recommended. The comments also confirm that charging whilst discharging is very slow, thus it's not ideal if your car spends much more time parked than moving.

If you want to go down this route, you're probably going to have to spend more on a device that is designed to be charged whilst driving like the Cellink B or the Blackvue Power Magic. The plus point for you regarding the Power Magic is that it doesn't have to be hard-wired.
 
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Not recommended for durability or for a safety reason?
 
I've made up a few 12v power packs using a small battery like this.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/B000V3QT42
The first I built into an old 'bag' cell phone bag, another I built in a cheap nylon carrier for a camera.
In the US you can find portable plastic case jump starters that sometimes have a small air inflator built in that use a battery this size, but they've gotten too pricey. (cheaper to make your own) :)
 
I've made up a few 12v power packs using a small battery like this.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/B000V3QT42
The first I built into an old 'bag' cell phone bag, another I built in a cheap nylon carrier for a camera.
In the US you can find portable plastic case jump starters that sometimes have a small air inflator built in that use a battery this size, but they've gotten too pricey. (cheaper to make your own) :)

There are sometimes clearance sales for these gadgets at Walmart and Home Depot; often they go for less than the cost for the battery alone. Costs for these batteries can vary greatly in a given amperage range. At my local battery store the PS-12120 F2 12A was just over half the cost of anything else they offered in nearby Amperage sizes though I'm not sure why so I bought two of them :D

Phil
 
Looking in the item FAQs it appears it can be used whilst charging...

View attachment 26780
I think this is ambiguous:
"you plug the device you're using into the next base charger whilst the dc is connected to the charger and the cars lighter socket."
The charger (as opposed to the battery pack) has a USB socket. I think that guy is suggesting plugging a device into the charger as a workaround. Which will work, but it isn't automatic. I.e. it isn't working as a UPS.
 
When you say "workaround" do you mean a standby power source when out of the car, rather than what I want which is for it to be permanently connected between car and cam, charge whilst I'm driving but provide cam power too as I drive, then power parking mode for a few hours while I'm parked up seeing a client in some dodgy part of the world?
 
Never mind, I misinterpreted the photos. The USB port is on the battery pack, not its charger.
 
From Nextbase today:

"Hi
When you are driving the camera should be plugged directly into your car cigarette power adaptor and when you are not driving you would then use the external battery. The battery will not work whilst being charged and the warranty period is 6 months.
Kind Regards,
Karen"
contact@nextbaseshop.co.uk
 
From Nextbase today:

"Hi
When you are driving the camera should be plugged directly into your car cigarette power adaptor and when you are not driving you would then use the external battery. The battery will not work whilst being charged and the warranty period is 6 months.
Kind Regards,
Karen"
contact@nextbaseshop.co.uk

I'm glad you confirmed this with the manufacturer. So, according to their reply it functions exactly like any other standard external power bank.

In virtually every instance where I have seen a power bank battery pack being touted as having what is commonly referred to as "pass-through-charging" it turns out to be marketing hype rather than a real feature using appropriate battery management circuitry.

In the case of the Nextbase External Battery Pack being discussed here it is interesting to note two verbatim quotes from the product description on the Amazon page for the product:

"The key difference between THIS powerbank and any other is the ability to power products via the inbuilt 12v cigarette lighter socket." -- "The power bank is easily recharged by your car AS YOU DRIVE and ensures you have power backup at all times."

It is easy to see why such language is rather misleading while at the same time not actually making a false claim.












 
Yes, I agree. Turns out the 12v socket referred to is the one in the battery pack not the car. So, no false claims but not a direct explanation AND of course as you say it is NOT different so that is actually bordering on a lie.

@Dashmellow I've now read some of your later posts in the LONG thread about this set up. You seem to know what you're talking about!
I understand nobody is likely to make a cheap power bank which charges and outputs simultaneously and so I will drop my quest for one, and for power when parked up I think. I really don't want to spend £170 on a proper pack, or have a hulking great battery pack in a small car, or worry about it overheating, etc...
 
Yes, I agree. Turns out the 12v socket referred to is the one in the battery pack not the car. So, no false claims but not a direct explanation AND of course as you say it is NOT different so that is actually bordering on a lie.

@Dashmellow I've now read some of your later posts in the LONG thread about this set up. You seem to know what you're talking about!
I understand nobody is likely to make a cheap power bank which charges and outputs simultaneously and so I will drop my quest for one, and for power when parked up I think. I really don't want to spend £170 on a proper pack, or have a hulking great battery pack in a small car, or worry about it overheating, etc...

I use two power banks to run four cameras on a daily basis at times when I am away from my vehicle, often for many, many hours at a time. It has just become a simple habit to unplug them from the USB adapters I have in the two 12V sockets in my console and plug them into the power banks when I park. When I return to my vehicle I just re-plug them into the 12V-5V USB adapters. (Sometimes, I'll just leave them running on the power banks and drive off.) When I get home I take them inside and charge them overnight.
 
Never ever heard of a super-capacitor blowing up or "melting" in a dash cam. The very worse that could happen would be that a capacitor might fail and stop working but I haven't heard any reports of that either.
 
I have replied to Nextbase asking why they allow the Amazon ad to mislead, and also to advise why two answers there say they use the pack whilst charging it.

Will report back...
 
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