Tool batteries have better cells inside and have similar voltages and capacities, yet they cost way less. Makita makes black 14,4V batteries, just check makita bl1450. The price of V mount is BS just like the price of most video and photo gear. I've used some V-mount bats with outdated cells in them, yet they costed $500. Absolutely no excuse for it.
I bought a step up USB to AC adapter and I'm able to power a small 12 volt 4K monitor out of a small powerbank for the whole day. (I'm very happy because the powerbank was way cheaper and smaller than the NPF batteries the monitor is designed for and it lasted longer.) Now I wonder if there is some kind of adapter for DJI drone batteries, so I can power more stuff with some old drone batteries I have lying around. Maybe DJI to Dtap or USB... I'm even thinking about what makes V-mounts different. Why don't we just put a bunch of power banks together to power anything we want? I feel like we are paying too much for batteries.
Since you already opened them up, could you publish the cells used in different brands of battery pack and do some teststhe cells (e.g. capacity, BMS functionality, etc)
99 watt hours shouldn’t cost much more than 100 dollars for just the battery (with markup to the customer already applied) maybe say another 20 for the electronics and then add some more stuff on top, how is a small rig 300 dollars??
Awesome man! i was just checking the price of the small compact vmounts like the FXlion nano one and i thought to myself that you can buy a powerbank for a fraction of the price with like double the capacity! After a lot of googling i landed here and its exactly what i wanted to see! Great job!!
=-=-Affordable Vmounts I'd recommend -=-= If you can find the Soonwell/rolux for under $250 In my opinion they have the best value overall March 2020: Soonwell 230Wh: amzn.to/3c8eFTP | ebay.to/3cf4gpu Soonwell 190Wh: amzn.to/2L6JtbD The Comer is a great value but feels cheaper, still best bang/buck Comer 190Wh: amzn.to/3caklg3
Thanks)) So can I replace the batteries inside with no problems? I'm worried by doing so it could destroy my camera. Can you please make a how-to change the batteries video?
I'm sorry, but if you need to ask those questions: DON'T DO IT. You are working with a live 'power supply' (the cells) at some point and you need to be very carefull on every step from that point on. The cells are well able to cause scary shorts. I recelled my V-mounts and on the five I had, I only caused a short once. I'm an electrician by trade and know my shorts, but fuck, it was the most scary short I had experienced (I'd rather short the mains). It was even so scary that I put all my tools aside and raised my hands like 'The fuck just happened...' and also thinking: okay... I'm too tired if I didn't see this coming so I have to stop' (I shorted two terminals with my scalpel blade, that (fortunately) evaporated upon contact) You will also need a spotwelder to get the cells connected to eachother.
Get into RC cars and airplanes and you start building your own battery packs. The cells are matched and expensive. Or you can pay someone else to do it.
@@carpballet Hahaha I love the push. I do plan to eventually do it, but my current bike won't accept a rear wheel hub motor and I wouldn't really use it that much at all. I still want one! But it's can't promise it'll happen anytime soon. Still I plan to make V mount and Np-f Battery packs so subscribe anyways? 🙃
So i have a question - what about the chargers - do you really need a special d tap charger or can you simply use any supply of the correct volts/watts to charge the battery? i guess my question is does the charging intelligence happen on the board you mentioned managed the balancing of the charge or does it happen in the actual charger?
Nope, you can't. Balancing and intelligence happens inside the battery (if it's a GOOD system inside the battery! I've seen shitty batteries!) but the better charger takes decisions based on communication FROM the battery TO the charger. The gas gauge (a more advanced battery management system in the pack) monitors each cell, but also monitors the cell's age: after each cycle, it either increments a lifetime-table or does something other fancy thing that's is too complex to explain (and I don't even understand myself...). It therefor knows exactly how long it will last at a measured current flowing, and thus also how long it will take to fully charge it. But it also monitors the state of charge and cuts off charge when the cells reach a certain voltage, combined with a calculation of how much energy has passed in a certain amount of time (thus: cells that reach the fully-charged limit won't invoke an immediate response from the charger or gas gauge, it will see how much energy has gone into the battery at that point and decide based on that value). Current at some point drops below the taper current, a set value by the cell-manufacturer where charging has to stop. Unfortunately, not every gas gauge adheres to this (mine didn't and (unfortunately) still don't because of the lack of communication with the charger). So my charger basically destroys the cells by topping them up way beyond the taper current. Charging via V-mount is something I would prefer/advise: if your batteries communicate (like I feel they should) with the charger, it will get the most optimal charge applied and will receive alert messages if a cell is heating up too much or if the ambient temperature is low (or high). My charger is dumb, so even though the gas gauge sounds (for example) a temperature alert, the charger just dumps 3 Amps into the pack, while the gas gauge wants to see the current limited below and over certain temperature thresholds. I don't know charging via D-tap well enough to know what it can and can't do inside, but I expect the gas gauge to lack certain safety features that way (as in: limiting the current will be hard as this requires an active charging circuit inside the battery, adding costs, reliability issues, weight and temperature) So yes, while charging could basically be 'apply power and just wait', you are dealing with cells that have a very tight margin on maximum cell voltage (usually 0,05 Volt MAX). Just slightly over that and the gas gauge will trigger a fault state that, if persistent for long enough, will trigger a permanent failure, rendering the battery useless as it cuts off the FETS to the outside world or blows a logic fuse (a fuse that blows on digital command). Too much current: same problem. And most power supplies are not meant to work in a CC/CV state (Constant Current, Constant Voltage) state, which has to happen with lithium cells. The power supply either fails because its output voltage drops too much (as the battery is basically a short to it) or fails because the battery will draw too much current (unlikely as many switch-mode power supplies have excellent short circuit protection, but evenso). And then there's the risk of backfeeding: if you pull the plug from the charger or you experience a powercut with the battery still attached, you most likely will ruin the charger as it just can't deal with energy being fed into the wrong end. I recelled mine and took a 9-month self-study on how to reset the gas gauge IC's. From the 5 I had, 4 are fully functional again (the fifth had to endure a bit too much solder-abuse and had the PCB damaged beyond reliable repair) I'm still working on the video on recelling them ;)
Have you ever found a shell, that you can just swap out your own 18650's? Like user swappable? Guess it would make battery companies obsolete if they did that?
Hi Neverland Productions, does any company sell a complete v-mount body and electronics where users can fill it with their own 18650 batteries, similar to power banks? Also, is it easy to replace the 18650 batteries once the V-mount battery has died?
The BMS inside those things is not just 10 dollars... Those are very advanced pieces of electronics by Texas Instruments or Maxim, besides probably a few other big names in the battery management industry. The chips are costly at 15 dollars and over (mind you, these are price points at 50 pieces and up!) and are incredibly complex. It only took me 9 months of self-study to figure out how to reset mine (BQ20Z65), and then finally start recelling them. The cases are NOT that cheap. Depending on the brand they have to endure strict testing for mechanical impact, fire-resistance and just overall quality (the whole battery is hanging on the V-mount basically, that needs some thought on the design of the casing). Certification for travel by plane is part of the high price. The aerospace-industry knows its prices... As the manufacturers will buy the cells by thousands, the price per cell drops significantly (I paid 360 euro for 180 genuine Panasonic NCR18650B's, they are far more expensive when bought by smaller amounts) And when it comes to the cells not being that well balanced: not an issue. The gas gauge will take care of that, it will only limit the total lifetime-on-a-charge for the total battery because one group of cells is worse than the other.
Not well balanced is an issue. It could significantly shorten the life of the entire battery pack. It also imply the BMS may not be working, or maybe there is no BMS at all. In theory, someone could slap together some 18650 cells with no BMS and call it a v mount battery pack.
@@xonx209 I was mainly referring to the video-creator mentioning that this is a thing of cheaper-batteries, while imbalance can happen in any battery and if it's a good BMS/gas gauge, will be corrected by said circuit. Imbalance does not mean the pack is bad, it's just a feature that surfaces when slapping multiple cells together. The chance of 1 cell performing just a bit off compared to the others, gets higher the more cells you put together. A good BMS/gas gauge calculates the amount of energy going into each cell and balances this off during charging already, so that by reaching Full SoC, all cells are at the same energy-level.
Great information but y'all do too much making the video about you instead of making the video about the cells inside. Would have loved to seen more close up AND b-roll footage of the cells inside the vmount batteries and how they were placed.
Yeeeah, most lithium ion batteries are built with these. Some like cellphone batteries use custom made square cells. But for the most part everything uses these!
That makes sense! But there's not a lot of disclosure and a lot of people don't realize that's how it works. Specially because you can buy batteries that are just single cells like AA, or even 18650 for flashlights or whatever. We reffer to both as batteries even though some are battery packs.
Thanks for the video. Im hunting down the most reliable NPF batteries? Does anyone have any recommendations? Currently using PowerExtra NPF980L on a Canon R5 and find the R5 loses power once the battery gets to 50% at 7.2V. The same battery and charge then placed on my LED will continue to run for an additional 60 plus mins.
Try to get a hold of Swit: it's one of those brands that supplies 'knock-offs' for a higher price than the super cheap ones, but after opening many up, I at least know they put quality cells in them and don't exaggerate the current they can deliver. They usually also feature a state-of-charge indicator on the pack, which most cheaper brands lack. About the percentages: that's the big deal with external batteries: the camera loses all control over the EXACT state of charge of the battery and thus reverts to monitoring the input voltage. Most likely, that 7,2 Volt is measured at the battery in unpowered state, while cabling ánd the camera loading the battery makes the voltage drop too much. Pair that with the possibility of just bad-quality or aged cells and it's why your camera drops out: camera's, photocameras especially, can draw huge peak-currents. My Pansonic GH5 manages to draw a estimated 3 Amps (the meter on my lab power supply is not fast enough to show the real current drawN) when taking a picture, while idling in the photomode, the current is negligible. Putting it to videomode gets the current drawn up to 1,2 Amps, actually recording video 1,6 Amps in FHD. Moving the camera significantly (with the optical stabilisation trying to correct this) will make the current-needle wiggle as it just draws current. Could very well be the battery just can't supply the peak-current it is sustaining, hence the camera cuts out as the input voltage drops too much.
Thanks for cracking open your batteries and running all those tests. Really helpful.
Tool batteries have better cells inside and have similar voltages and capacities, yet they cost way less. Makita makes black 14,4V batteries, just check makita bl1450. The price of V mount is BS just like the price of most video and photo gear. I've used some V-mount bats with outdated cells in them, yet they costed $500. Absolutely no excuse for it.
How can I use this battery with Bm cameras?
Time for an update. All the recommended links are dead.
I bought a step up USB to AC adapter and I'm able to power a small 12 volt 4K monitor out of a small powerbank for the whole day. (I'm very happy because the powerbank was way cheaper and smaller than the NPF batteries the monitor is designed for and it lasted longer.)
Now I wonder if there is some kind of adapter for DJI drone batteries, so I can power more stuff with some old drone batteries I have lying around.
Maybe DJI to Dtap or USB... I'm even thinking about what makes V-mounts different. Why don't we just put a bunch of power banks together to power anything we want? I feel like we are paying too much for batteries.
this deserves more views! it's one of the most useful video on this topic. subscribed! would be great to see more videos on batteries, cheers!
Dude this is such a good video. Super informative!
😃
Since you already opened them up, could you publish the cells used in different brands of battery pack and do some teststhe cells (e.g. capacity, BMS functionality, etc)
99 watt hours shouldn’t cost much more than 100 dollars for just the battery (with markup to the customer already applied) maybe say another 20 for the electronics and then add some more stuff on top, how is a small rig 300 dollars??
Awesome man! i was just checking the price of the small compact vmounts like the FXlion nano one and i thought to myself that you can buy a powerbank for a fraction of the price with like double the capacity! After a lot of googling i landed here and its exactly what i wanted to see! Great job!!
So is it better the power bank than the v mount?
=-=-Affordable Vmounts I'd recommend -=-=
If you can find the Soonwell/rolux for under $250 In my opinion they have the best value overall
March 2020:
Soonwell 230Wh: amzn.to/3c8eFTP | ebay.to/3cf4gpu
Soonwell 190Wh: amzn.to/2L6JtbD
The Comer is a great value but feels cheaper, still best bang/buck
Comer 190Wh: amzn.to/3caklg3
That wholesome ending
Sooo... What ended up happening to those 100 battery cells you bought?
Thanks)) So can I replace the batteries inside with no problems? I'm worried by doing so it could destroy my camera. Can you please make a how-to change the batteries video?
I'm sorry, but if you need to ask those questions: DON'T DO IT. You are working with a live 'power supply' (the cells) at some point and you need to be very carefull on every step from that point on. The cells are well able to cause scary shorts. I recelled my V-mounts and on the five I had, I only caused a short once. I'm an electrician by trade and know my shorts, but fuck, it was the most scary short I had experienced (I'd rather short the mains).
It was even so scary that I put all my tools aside and raised my hands like 'The fuck just happened...' and also thinking: okay... I'm too tired if I didn't see this coming so I have to stop' (I shorted two terminals with my scalpel blade, that (fortunately) evaporated upon contact)
You will also need a spotwelder to get the cells connected to eachother.
Get into RC cars and airplanes and you start building your own battery packs. The cells are matched and expensive. Or you can pay someone else to do it.
While I haven't built my own yet, thats how I learned about all this. Mostly because I wanted to make an ebike 😃
@@NeverlandProductions having a few technical hobbies is good for your mind. It's cool how skills from one overlap onto others.
Plus it's fun.
Neverland Productions I am working on building an ebike. Actually a cargo ebike. You go first and I’ll subscribe.
@@carpballet my little brother has one. I'm not talking to him he's fruity. Lives in San fran...
@@carpballet Hahaha I love the push.
I do plan to eventually do it, but my current bike won't accept a rear wheel hub motor and I wouldn't really use it that much at all. I still want one! But it's can't promise it'll happen anytime soon.
Still I plan to make V mount and Np-f Battery packs so subscribe anyways? 🙃
How did you open the covers of the V lock batteries ?
So i have a question - what about the chargers - do you really need a special d tap charger or can you simply use any supply of the correct volts/watts to charge the battery? i guess my question is does the charging intelligence happen on the board you mentioned managed the balancing of the charge or does it happen in the actual charger?
Nope, you can't. Balancing and intelligence happens inside the battery (if it's a GOOD system inside the battery! I've seen shitty batteries!) but the better charger takes decisions based on communication FROM the battery TO the charger.
The gas gauge (a more advanced battery management system in the pack) monitors each cell, but also monitors the cell's age: after each cycle, it either increments a lifetime-table or does something other fancy thing that's is too complex to explain (and I don't even understand myself...). It therefor knows exactly how long it will last at a measured current flowing, and thus also how long it will take to fully charge it.
But it also monitors the state of charge and cuts off charge when the cells reach a certain voltage, combined with a calculation of how much energy has passed in a certain amount of time (thus: cells that reach the fully-charged limit won't invoke an immediate response from the charger or gas gauge, it will see how much energy has gone into the battery at that point and decide based on that value).
Current at some point drops below the taper current, a set value by the cell-manufacturer where charging has to stop. Unfortunately, not every gas gauge adheres to this (mine didn't and (unfortunately) still don't because of the lack of communication with the charger). So my charger basically destroys the cells by topping them up way beyond the taper current.
Charging via V-mount is something I would prefer/advise: if your batteries communicate (like I feel they should) with the charger, it will get the most optimal charge applied and will receive alert messages if a cell is heating up too much or if the ambient temperature is low (or high).
My charger is dumb, so even though the gas gauge sounds (for example) a temperature alert, the charger just dumps 3 Amps into the pack, while the gas gauge wants to see the current limited below and over certain temperature thresholds.
I don't know charging via D-tap well enough to know what it can and can't do inside, but I expect the gas gauge to lack certain safety features that way (as in: limiting the current will be hard as this requires an active charging circuit inside the battery, adding costs, reliability issues, weight and temperature)
So yes, while charging could basically be 'apply power and just wait', you are dealing with cells that have a very tight margin on maximum cell voltage (usually 0,05 Volt MAX). Just slightly over that and the gas gauge will trigger a fault state that, if persistent for long enough, will trigger a permanent failure, rendering the battery useless as it cuts off the FETS to the outside world or blows a logic fuse (a fuse that blows on digital command).
Too much current: same problem. And most power supplies are not meant to work in a CC/CV state (Constant Current, Constant Voltage) state, which has to happen with lithium cells. The power supply either fails because its output voltage drops too much (as the battery is basically a short to it) or fails because the battery will draw too much current (unlikely as many switch-mode power supplies have excellent short circuit protection, but evenso).
And then there's the risk of backfeeding: if you pull the plug from the charger or you experience a powercut with the battery still attached, you most likely will ruin the charger as it just can't deal with energy being fed into the wrong end.
I recelled mine and took a 9-month self-study on how to reset the gas gauge IC's. From the 5 I had, 4 are fully functional again (the fifth had to endure a bit too much solder-abuse and had the PCB damaged beyond reliable repair)
I'm still working on the video on recelling them ;)
Thank you so much! You absolutely deserve more views!
Have you ever found a shell, that you can just swap out your own 18650's? Like user swappable? Guess it would make battery companies obsolete if they did that?
That would be great. Haven’t found one yet. You could just get a cheap old npf550 and bulk out a big pack onto the back of it.
Hi Neverland Productions, does any company sell a complete v-mount body and electronics where users can fill it with their own 18650 batteries, similar to power banks? Also, is it easy to replace the 18650 batteries once the V-mount battery has died?
I would also like to know that if there is a body to fill your own 18650 batteries.
The BMS inside those things is not just 10 dollars... Those are very advanced pieces of electronics by Texas Instruments or Maxim, besides probably a few other big names in the battery management industry. The chips are costly at 15 dollars and over (mind you, these are price points at 50 pieces and up!) and are incredibly complex. It only took me 9 months of self-study to figure out how to reset mine (BQ20Z65), and then finally start recelling them.
The cases are NOT that cheap. Depending on the brand they have to endure strict testing for mechanical impact, fire-resistance and just overall quality (the whole battery is hanging on the V-mount basically, that needs some thought on the design of the casing). Certification for travel by plane is part of the high price. The aerospace-industry knows its prices...
As the manufacturers will buy the cells by thousands, the price per cell drops significantly (I paid 360 euro for 180 genuine Panasonic NCR18650B's, they are far more expensive when bought by smaller amounts)
And when it comes to the cells not being that well balanced: not an issue. The gas gauge will take care of that, it will only limit the total lifetime-on-a-charge for the total battery because one group of cells is worse than the other.
Not well balanced is an issue. It could significantly shorten the life of the entire battery pack. It also imply the BMS may not be working, or maybe there is no BMS at all. In theory, someone could slap together some 18650 cells with no BMS and call it a v mount battery pack.
@@xonx209 I was mainly referring to the video-creator mentioning that this is a thing of cheaper-batteries, while imbalance can happen in any battery and if it's a good BMS/gas gauge, will be corrected by said circuit. Imbalance does not mean the pack is bad, it's just a feature that surfaces when slapping multiple cells together. The chance of 1 cell performing just a bit off compared to the others, gets higher the more cells you put together. A good BMS/gas gauge calculates the amount of energy going into each cell and balances this off during charging already, so that by reaching Full SoC, all cells are at the same energy-level.
didnt have any follow up videoo after this :(
Hi NP! What is the battery I can use for Sony BP-GL95A?
Wow, this is crazy good video! Very informative.
so much value out of this video
No follow up on NP-F testing :'(
This is the nerd shit I've been looking for. Also, your partner is also either a similar nerd (in a good way) or very patient
Good presentation
Yo man i love you thank you so much for explaining this super helpful
Great information but y'all do too much making the video about you instead of making the video about the cells inside.
Would have loved to seen more close up AND b-roll footage of the cells inside the vmount batteries and how they were placed.
Great video, thank you!
this is freaking awesome. didn't know these are all connected with the same batteries
Yeeeah, most lithium ion batteries are built with these. Some like cellphone batteries use custom made square cells. But for the most part everything uses these!
A "battery" is a group of cells.
Go buy a cheap small 9 volt radio battery and destroy it. Inside are six small 1.5 volt cells.
That makes sense! But there's not a lot of disclosure and a lot of people don't realize that's how it works. Specially because you can buy batteries that are just single cells like AA, or even 18650 for flashlights or whatever. We reffer to both as batteries even though some are battery packs.
O
Thank you.
great video pro
Can this battery be shipped to Nepal? We can talk on whatss aap
That's interesting :)
Thanks for the video. Im hunting down the most reliable NPF batteries? Does anyone have any recommendations? Currently using PowerExtra NPF980L on a Canon R5 and find the R5 loses power once the battery gets to 50% at 7.2V. The same battery and charge then placed on my LED will continue to run for an additional 60 plus mins.
Try to get a hold of Swit: it's one of those brands that supplies 'knock-offs' for a higher price than the super cheap ones, but after opening many up, I at least know they put quality cells in them and don't exaggerate the current they can deliver. They usually also feature a state-of-charge indicator on the pack, which most cheaper brands lack.
About the percentages: that's the big deal with external batteries: the camera loses all control over the EXACT state of charge of the battery and thus reverts to monitoring the input voltage.
Most likely, that 7,2 Volt is measured at the battery in unpowered state, while cabling ánd the camera loading the battery makes the voltage drop too much. Pair that with the possibility of just bad-quality or aged cells and it's why your camera drops out: camera's, photocameras especially, can draw huge peak-currents. My Pansonic GH5 manages to draw a estimated 3 Amps (the meter on my lab power supply is not fast enough to show the real current drawN) when taking a picture, while idling in the photomode, the current is negligible.
Putting it to videomode gets the current drawn up to 1,2 Amps, actually recording video 1,6 Amps in FHD. Moving the camera significantly (with the optical stabilisation trying to correct this) will make the current-needle wiggle as it just draws current.
Could very well be the battery just can't supply the peak-current it is sustaining, hence the camera cuts out as the input voltage drops too much.
@@weeardguy thanks for the information!
@@taghappytv You're welcome ;)
if i can just smash the like button ;)
+1
very useful info but cringy humor