Re: How important is it to be all DC powered on set?
- From: Noah Timan <dontwritemehereok@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 21:57:14 -0700 (PDT)
Hey John Paul,
I use my Macbook just about every day as part of my rig. It's my
backup recorder (with BR) and I've never run into power issues. When
we don't have power, I've got two internal batteries for the MacBook.
I've never had to change them in the field, since the internal battery
runs the computer for about three hours and I haven't been in a
situation since I started using BR that we went more than that time
without access to any power (and I just finished a film where we shot
in the woods in the middle of nowhere for a month -- even then there
was always power and the only times I needed to go without it was when
I needed to turn a noisy genny off because myself, video, and craft
service were the only people using it.).
If worst came to absolute worst, I suppose I'd forego the backup
recording and just use my primary recorder. It's never really come
up.
At one point I was very serious about putting a Mac Mini on my cart
and going through the whole rigamarole of building a DC-DC regulated
powering system with a regulator and all of that, installing a
keyboard and screen for it, and so forth. After some time I realized
it was just easier to use my laptop, which has been pretty dependable
as recorder #2 for two years now, in hot and cold and wet and all the
rest of it, and a lot simpler.
If you were really diehard about wanting to run your Macbook off your
DC power distro, it *can* be done...airline adapters are one approach,
and after a certain point the Magsafe cable is just wire with voltage
travelling down it, so you could probably do a custom job with a
little research. But I wouldn't advise it, since the Macbook is a
pretty power-hungry sucker and I can't imagine it'd be good for your
battery or your overall read voltage output, even floated, with your
battery running the rest of your gear at the same time. I have a
couple of very power hungry devices on my cart (the computer is one),
and I generally keep those separate from the general AC-to-battery
distro as they'll overtask a 33 Ah battery pretty quickly if I ask
that battery to feed all of them. (With all the junk on my cart I've
given it plenty to do as it is!) The only other solution is a VERY
heavy big battery like a 72 Ah -- which stays on the truck unless
there's a real emergency, but which I don't want to have to lug around
every day.
I've never personally been very excited about the concept of inverters
to power things off the cart, and have gone through some pains to
avoid that eventuality -- inverters just aren't very efficient by
their nature, and to top it off, most of them can be quite noisy.
"What's that noisemaker? Oh, right, it's me."
Regards,
Noah Timan
On Jun 30, 11:01 pm, johnpaul215 <xjohnpa...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
slightly off topic, but applicable....
What would you use to power a Mac laptop on a DC powered cart?
Specifically i'm talking about a MacBook, but as with any of the
current models, the magsafe plug has minimized 3rd party options. Are
you using a MagSafe Airline Adapter or actually going DC - AC inverter
to Apple power supply? Lots of batteries and reboots (yikes)? I've
pondered messing around with Boom Recorder for some situations, but if
i can't power my laptop, what's the point.
thanks,
johnpaul
.
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