Parking Battery-Power Station, 3X capacity and 3X cheaper than dedicated options + extra functionality

[DigitalCorpus]

Didn’t think of looking for their website, but anyhow, that works out. So, 130 W input total on a single unit. Doing a form of what @GPak suggested should work for charging all three.

I’d need to charge 2 of them @ 130 W and then plumb those two into the third to charge it in order to keep all of them topped off. Then again, a boost converter to up the voltage to 16-16.5 V and then run that power to the trunk and plumb that into all 3 to charge them and then just use the type C jack to power the dash cam/DVR.

I look forward to the testing. I need to make sure my uneven trunk floor will suit the 322 Whr packs. I already know I need to stack them if I use 3.

 

[GPak]

Didn’t think of looking for their website, but anyhow, that works out. So, 130 W input total on a single unit. Doing a form of what @GPak suggested should work for charging all three.
I’d need to charge 2 of them @ 130 W and then plumb those two into the third to charge it in order to keep all of them topped off. Then again, a boost converter to up the voltage to 16-16.5 V and then run that power to the trunk and plumb that into all 3 to charge them and then just use the type C jack to power the dash cam/DVR.
I look forward to the testing. I need to make sure my uneven trunk floor will suit the 322 Whr packs. I already know I need to stack them if I use 3.

N-322Wh DC input limit is 4A, with alternator voltage at 14.5V charge rate could be 58W (DC)+65W (USB-C) = 123W total, realistically I think may be around 115W
However most power stations have DC input limitation (in max Watts), and it is unknown if N-322 will take that charge, also it is unknown how the stations will work in parallel, so there is risk here to spend a lot of money and it may not work.
May be it makes sense to check out 768Wh stations like Ecoflow River 2 Pro ($400) or just released Bluetti AC70, ($500) they can be charged at 220W max and 500W max accordingly by boosting voltage as shown here:

I am sure, less known power station brands may have similar specs for less price

 

[DigitalCorpus]

Having a lack of button presses required to have things power automatically with ignition and accessory power is the question. I’ll see who around me carries some of the packs to do a hands on to check. Trunk space will be different too.

 

[DigitalCorpus]

N-322Wh DC input limit is 4A, with alternator voltage at 14.5V charge rate could be 58W (DC)+65W (USB-C) = 123W total, realistically I think may be around 115W
However most power stations have DC input limitation (in max Watts), and it is unknown if N-322 will take that charge, also it is unknown how the stations will work in parallel, so there is risk here to spend a lot of money and it may not work.
May be it makes sense to check out 768Wh stations like Ecoflow River 2 Pro ($400) or just released Bluetti AC70, ($500) they can be charged at 220W max and 500W max accordingly by busting voltage as shown here:

I am sure, less known power station brands may have similar specs for less price

Then again, with where in the trunk I’m utilizing, a modular setup with smaller units fits far better. In fact, the 6.6” width is spot on for where these would reside. Need to tale things apart on the car and figure out a safe way to plumb ~250 W to the trunk? Funny that you mention the alternator as I have a 90 A in my old car and have noted than this one is considerably smaller and I need to see if someone has posted online what it’s rating is. I have current clamps that would help me make sure I don’t overdraw things too.

Anyhow, I hope my musing has contributed to your thread and it doesn’t come across like I’m hijacking it.

 

[GPak]

Anyhow, I hope my musing has contributed to your thread and it doesn’t come across like I’m hijacking it.

The Forum is here to share and help each other, you can post here as much as you want
You are sizing unusually large system which can be interesting to some.

Now the one last thought, your system is so large because of the 72 hour weekend parking, but weekend parking is usually at home or nearby.
I don't know your weekend parking specifics, but I would consider surveillance/security camera instead of DashCam for home parking, if it is feasible in you case of-curse.
Security cameras are widely available, will provide better all around protection during day and night vision, constantly recording powered from grid, and not easily vandalized like DashCams.
The parking battery system can then be easily sized for an "away from home" driving cycle.

 

[mentadent]

I would make LTO a requirement to reduce fire risk.

 

[DigitalCorpus]

I would make LTO a requirement to reduce fire risk.

A cursory search didn't net more than a few prismatic cells. Do you have any "12V" packs + BMS you can loosely recommend?

The Forum is here to share and help each other, you can post here as much as you want
You are sizing unusually large system which can be interesting to some.

Now the one last thought, your system is so large because of the 72 hour weekend parking, but weekend parking is usually at home or nearby.
I don't know your weekend parking specifics, but I would consider surveillance/security camera instead of DashCam for home parking, if it is feasible in you case of-curse.
Security cameras are widely available, will provide better all around protection during day and night vision, constantly recording powered from grid, and not easily vandalized like DashCams.
The parking battery system can then be easily sized for an "away from home" driving cycle.

Valid recommendation, but I am not always in view of the house, nor the same parking space so in-car camera is more desirable

That said, I think I might go the low tech route here. A single SLA/flooded 12V LFP/LiFePO4 replacement pack that's rated for 50 Ah is $120-$180. Or I could string 2-3, 20-35 Ah packs. I know I still need a battery isolator and some other supporting electronics. The car's electrical system is designed around AGM batteries so I have to make sure float voltages won't be an issue.

 

[GPak]

I would make LTO a requirement to reduce fire risk.

LTO is the safest lithium based battery with some good properties but not without shortcomings (there is reason why it is not widely used)
It has the lowest power decency hence size of the battery is larger for the given capacity, pretty much inversely proportional to nominal operating voltage;
LTO -2.3-2.4V
LFP - 3.2-3.3V
Li-Ion variations - 3.6-3.8V

LTO full operating range is about 2.85-1.5V, which translates to 17-9V range in 6S configuration, wide range, little difficult to manage (LFP is 14.6-10V in 4S configuration for comparison)

But most importantly it is impossible to find LTO based Power Station, never mind meeting all the necessary requirements for Dash cam use.
I guess components like BMS, Charge controllers, etc. are also not that common
So, may be some time in the future but not now.

 

[DigitalCorpus]

I’ve followed lithium chemistries for some time so I’m aware of LTO, but is the commerical viability good enough to where we can buy packs of cells with a BMS to drop into a 12 V system? If not, then LFP/LiFePO4 is still the go to at the moment, no?

 

[mentadent]

LiFePO4 would be good as well. I have that in my Powercore. I think LTO is too new to be realistic.

 

[GPak]

BTW, I also tested the same setup with very cheap Amazon Relay, i.e. when ACC is ON, the power supply of the DashCam and the charging of the PC are independent of each other.

Not only this helps to charge PS faster (eliminating simultaneous discharge portion) but also helps with longevity of the battery, cause batteries are not "happy" to be charged and discharged at the same time.
It was working great, the reason I did not incorporated it, was because bulky Relay looked really unprofessional and I was unable to find quality and compact 5V or 12V Relay.
Note, that Relay doesn’t have to be very fast thanks to super capacitors in DashCam and since it is on low power DashCam side it doesn’t have to be powerful, 5V, 3A rated Relay will work, (12V, 1.5A for 12V system).

I will definitely incorporate Relay into wiring when I find quality compact one

It's a great feature, I am not sure if dedicated batteries have it, if so, good for them.
(See Option 2 Wiring diagram )

 

[DigitalCorpus]

BTW, I also tested the same setup with very cheap Amazon Relay, i.e. when ACC is ON, the power supply of the DashCam and the charging of the PC are independent of each other.

Not only this helps to charge PS faster (eliminating simultaneous discharge portion) but also helps with longevity of the battery, cause batteries are not "happy" to be charged and discharged at the same time.
It was working great, the reason I did not incorporated it, was because bulky Relay looked really unprofessional and I was unable to find quality and compact 5V or 12V Relay.
Note, that Relay doesn’t have to be very fast thanks to super capacitors in DashCam and since it is on low power DashCam side it doesn’t have to be powerful, 5V, 3A rated Relay will work, (12V, 1.5A for 12V system).

I will definitely incorporate Relay into wiring when I find quality compact one

It's a great feature, I am not sure if dedicated batteries have it, if so, good for them.
(See Option 2 Wiring diagram )

Very nice and a great mini upgrade. Now, this isn't so much that you're trying to charge and discharge the battery at the same time, but just that the net amount of power for charging is higher since the draw for the dash cam isn't being taken from the allotted 65 W the pack is limited to. You're not harming the battery in any way, and, technically speaking, you're extending the battery's life that is in the pack by charging it at a lower rate. I

I'm sure there are standard automotive relays that match the layout desired, or even standard electrical ones, SPDT (single pole, double throw), in aesthetic/practical cases that allow for a more integrated look.

Intermission: I'll try and be more clear on my own wording and not call the power stations "packs", but I don't like typing that out all of the time . A "battery" is a composite device made of cells, like discrete AA and AAA NiMH battery/cells for portable electronics. The "12 V" or "24 V" batteries that are comprised of LFP/LiFePO4 cells are rarely dumb like flooded lead acid or AGM batteries and actually have built in BMS (battery management system). As such, they are safe to plug into your car's electrical in parallel, via a relay, with your starter battery. Since they have a BMS, they don't need an external DC/DC converter, per se.

In my digging so far, which I'll put up more later as I'm will kinda in the surface level stuff at the moment, a dual battery setup may not be that simple either. If people go looking for adding a second battery, a stand alone battery to their trunk for this (which is where I'm probably going to settle) a large amount of overviews will indicate a relayed/isolated setup is not advisable. Unless you're picking packs that differ greatly from your starter battery, or you have a "smart" alternator (need to dig into this topic for the purposes of identification) you can run a down low, simple setup with an isolater/relay. If you decide to look into this rabbit hole, you'll come across 2 sub-fields of automotive electronics, audio/sound and overlanding. Both are valid, but we're on the much lower end of power demand so the expense that some need are unlikely here.

 

[DigitalCorpus]

I'm considering going this route myself, though I do expect to see high car temps in summer and favor LiFePO4 chemistry as a result. Unless these manufacturers can guaranty operating environments of 60 °C, they won't fit my use case. Haven't had time to look over them too much, but I like where you're going with this.

My primary sticking point for a second/external/dual battery setup is finding one that will not have a problem with 65 °C environments for charge discharge. I think I'm going to have to ignore this and as long as a back isn't rated for 50 °C/122 °C or lower for charging, I don't think I'll have an issue here; especially when reminding myself about the safety of LiFePO4.


Anyhow, since I don't have to worry about a 180 W charging limit, I only have to see if I'm potentially overdrawing my electrical system. I have ID'd a drop in high output alternator for the car, but I'm not in the mood of spending $500 if it is completely unnecessary. If a stand alone battery is desired, 0.2C charging rate is desired for the sake of long-term capacity, but 0.5 C is fine, thus is you're dealing with say 50 Ah, charge rate should be not more than 10 A and can be bumped to 25 A. I'm looking at 1 week per 100% DoD at most, so if I shorten cycle count from 3000 to 2000 by the higher charge rate, that still 1 battery for more than a 2 decades of use.

 

[DashCamUser123]

You don't know how much you miss Parking Mode until you don't have it anymore. While I wait for BlackBoxMyCar to ship my 2 new batteries, I am using the INIU Power Bank, 20000mAh Portable Charger USB C in&out, 22.5W PD3.0 QC4.0 Fast Charge External Battery Pack for when I away from my car.

I am only running the front camera for now but it works. The only thing is that, it is not recording in low-bitrate (?). I assume the low-bitrate is only available in Parking Mode on the Viofo A129 Duo?

 

[GPak]

You don't know how much you miss Parking Mode until you don't have it anymore. While I wait for BlackBoxMyCar to ship my 2 new batteries, I am using the INIU Power Bank, 20000mAh Portable Charger USB C in&out, 22.5W PD3.0 QC4.0 Fast Charge External Battery Pack for when I away from my car.

I am only running the front camera for now but it works. The only thing is that, it is not recording in low-bit-rate (?). I assume the low-bit-rate is only available in Parking Mode on the Viofo A129 Duo?

When you powering the dash cam with any Power Bank using included dash cam USB cable, dash cam runs in a normal recording mode, without ACC signal it doesn't know when to switch to parking mode.
For a normal mode recording you can change bit-rate to low in settings, but then it will stay low bit-rate when driving (once again without ACC signal dash cam doesn't know when to switch to parking mode)
Although, I believe dash cam can switch to parking mode after 5 min of no activity.

Now the solution:
You can get another hard-wire kit/cable and modify it as shown in my post #10 (it is really easy, literally cutting and twisting three wires together).
Problem solved! Any Power Bank which can be charged and discharged at the same time will work as hard-wired setup, enabling parking mode, just plug it into ACC cigar socket/adapter as shown in my post #8.

 

[DigitalCorpus]

Picking up a 12V, 100Ah, "mini" 12 V battery that uses LiFePO4 pouch cells under compression. There are [at least] 3 on the market and they all have the same internal construction but with different labels and colors for their housings. It'll fit inside of an 11"x6" footprint, ~9" tall. Standard charge rate observed at 0.2C nets 20 A, and I'm going to have to implement a charger so as to keep the alternator happy. Haven't determined all of the parts on the shopping list yet or how I'm going to route the power back to the dashcam along with ancillary features like being able to jump the starter battery from the lithium battery. This will be more complex than @GPak's idea here, but I also don't have high current wire running to my trunk so complexity was inevitable.

 

[kawayanan]

GPak - this is awesome. Thank you for your work testing this out. I had been looking at LiFePO4 batteries, charge controllers (boost/buck converters), etc. trying to come up with a configuration I thought was good for a DIY battery pack to run my Viofo A229 which is hard wired right now. I hadn't looked for LiFePO4 power stations. This makes more sense than the DIY I was planning on, and still has a portable power station that can be used for other things too when needed.

I ordered a 322Wh NECESPOW and will post my setup when it come in (Amazon had it, but not Prime - I have to wait 10 days for it).

 

[GPak]

This will be more complex than @GPak's idea here, but I also don't have high current wire running to my trunk so complexity was inevitable.

It will be a "monster" system and quite complex, I’m not sure there will be followers, but it will definitely be interesting to see the end result.

 

[GPak]

I ordered a 322Wh NECESPOW and will post my setup when it come in (Amazon had it, but not Prime - I have to wait 10 days for it).

Necespow 322Wh Power Station is a good choice especially with the lowest sale price I have seen $116.
Please do post your setup, it is interesting and may be helpful to others.

I would recommend to run 12V system, which compere to 5V system has considerable advantages:

- Power Station’s 12V DC output efficiency is better than USB (85% vs 76% or 274Wh usable vs 244Wh, the difference is 30Wh or about 5 hours of parking recording for dual channel DVR !)
- 12V system is not affected by voltage drop due to long wires, plus often USB port output is less than 5V, which may cause DVR malfunction.
- HK4 Hardwire cable can be used “as is”, un-modified, and it provides about 5.6V to DVR. When set to 11.8V CUT OFF it only cuts the last 2.2% or 3Wh of usable capacity and that is good.
(That 3Wh is “falling from cliff” energy where voltage drops rapidly from 11.8V to 11.2V at which point power station will shut OFF on its own).

 

[Nigel]

- Power Station’s 12V DC output efficiency is better than USB (85% vs 76% or 274Wh usable vs 244Wh, the difference is 30Wh or about 5 hours of parking recording for dual channel DVR !)

I am having difficulty working out what you mean, are you saying that the hardwire kit that you connect to the 12V output has 85% efficiency while the Power Station's voltage regulator is only 76% efficient?

(That 3Wh is “falling from cliff” energy where voltage drops rapidly from 11.8V to 11.2V at which point power station will shut OFF on its own).

There has been a bit of arguing about this in the past. The 3Wh left cutoff is good, but I suspect that is only true at room temperature, if the power station gets down to 5°C in the winter, it will leave a lot more power in the battery since the battery voltage under load, drops with temperature.