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Power hungry IQ4, power back up alternative

M

Maxx9photo

Active member
This thing really sucked the battery out pretty fast :D

Have any users here using after market battery? Any chance I can hook up the back to a power bank?
 
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Greg Haag

Greg Haag

Well-known member
I believe Steve Hendrix may have posted some by Brad Kaye at Capture Integration addressing supplemental power options, but I cannot find it when I search. I will dig around and see if I can find it.
 
Mexecutioner

Mexecutioner

Well-known member
You should be able to use external power, CI posted an article about it.

In my case, I bought 10 batteries and have 3 dual chargers as I’d rather have no cables or power banks attached to the camera. Batteries are pretty cheap compared to other cameras.

I agree they go out pretty quick.
 
Steve Hendrix

Steve Hendrix

Well-known member
buildbot

buildbot

Well-known member
Maxx9photo said:
This thing really sucked the battery out pretty fast :D

Has any users here using after market battery? Any chance I can hook up the back to a power bank?
Click to expand...
Downside of a linux based system in my opinion. Harder (not impossible) to optimize for. The IQ series is based on Green Hills Software and Embedded Windows (!!) I believe based on this: https://www.ghs.com/news/20110927_esc_boston11_Phase_One.html and wandering through the IQ1-3 series firmware which certainly seems to have come from something windows-y with references to C:\, D:\ and N:\ drives.

Plus, the Cortex A8 is much lower wattage than any ZynqMP SoC (FPGA + cortex A53) part that could be in the IQ4. 1-3 watts vs. maybe about 13? This is big guess and could be wrong!
 
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S

Smoothjazz

Active member
On the Capture Integration web site there is an article by Dave Gallagher back in 2019 about a portable battery pack : "Phase One IQ4 USB C Charging in the Field".
It is a portable Power battery pack small enough to carry in the field that plugs into the digital back. I own one and use it for some of my macro photography work, which consumes a lot of battery power. It helps avoid those frequent battery changes in the middle of a focus stack.
 
mkphotomedia

mkphotomedia

Member
If it's set to pull USB power in Power Settings, the IQ4 will pull power off any suitable USBC power source it deems capable. Whether one can charge, or at least slow down the rate of discharge, with this depends on how much power your power source can push.

I've used Anker's and Hyper's USBC power banks to great effect. Since I shoot tethered, a HyperJuice 98Wh/100W external power bank plugged into a 2018 MBP, tethered to the IQ4, will power both for about 6 hours of tethered shooting before needing a battery change on the Phase and a juice-up of the power bank/laptop, although for whatever reason (cable voodoo, likely) the IQ4 sometimes doesn't start pulling power even when you tell it to. Using a short and heavy USBC-USBC cable, and connecting to USBC before starting the back up (and making sure that the 'heartbeat' charging LED starts showing) when tethered seems to help. That said, I usually open up the Power Settings panel before shooting just to make sure that I'm seeing a few watts of USB power coming in before shooting just to get around any rude surprises later in the shooting day. :)
 
mkphotomedia

mkphotomedia

Member
buildbot said:
The IQ series is based on Green Hills Software and Embedded Windows (!!) I believe based on this: https://www.ghs.com/news/20110927_esc_boston11_Phase_One.html and wandering through the IQ1-3 series firmware which certainly seems to have come from something windows-y with references to C:\, D:\ and N:\ drives.

Plus, the Cortex A8 is much lower wattage than any ZynqMP SoC (FPGA + cortex A53) part that could be in the IQ4. 1-3 watts vs. maybe about 13? This is big guess and could be wrong!
Click to expand...
Most interesting. Sometime in late 2020/early 2021, Phase did a "show and tell" video/Zoom call going through some of their early prototypes of the IQ4; it was rather fun for nerdy types like me and may still be available on either Phase's or DT's (I think) YouTube channels. I don't think the Phase dev called out what ARM part they actually used, but if you've more or less rooted your IQ4, it should in theory be easy to find out via /proc/cpuinfo, no?
 
Bill Caulfeild-Browne

Bill Caulfeild-Browne

Well-known member
Mexecutioner said:
You should be able to use external power, CI posted an article about it.

In my case, I bought 10 batteries and have 3 dual chargers as I’d rather have no cables or power banks attached to the camera. Batteries are pretty cheap compared to other cameras.

I agree they go out pretty quick.
Click to expand...
That's my thinking too!
 
M

Maxx9photo

Active member
It's been resolved guys! the previous power bank I got was low on watt output, therefore the charge is either too slow at minimum or nothing at all.

I just got an Anker brand with 140w output and the camera is charging as it should.
 
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