Battery power for router

Sablon Audio

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May 22, 2015
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Bouyed by my success with the Hynes SR4, I am now looking into evaluting battery power for an Airport Express router. Will likely try a 3.3v LIFEPO4 in order to avoid noise from dc voltage converters. Has anyone here tried this or know of someone who has?
 

zztop7

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Dec 12, 2012
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Bouyed by my success with the Hynes SR4, I am now looking into evaluting battery power for an Airport Express router. Will likely try a 3.3v LIFEPO4 in order to avoid noise from dc voltage converters. Has anyone here tried this or know of someone who has?

I truly hope that this thread achieves some strong quality life.

zz.
 

cyclopse

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Jul 25, 2016
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What about a linear supply for the router? I use a SBooster with great results.
 

Sablon Audio

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Sure, I could certainly order another lps from hynes / pardo / sigma 11 / sbooster etc but was curious to experiment with battery power. In this case, the inbuilt Apple smps is easily removed and replaced or even supplemented by a dc input jack in parallel for comparisons to be run. Fwiw sbooster don’t list a 3.3v option though I daresay they could make one to order, however a rechargeable IFEPO4 3.3v battery is readily available for loose change and I wondered if others had experimented with these.
 

Tecknik1

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May 29, 2017
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Battery powered router' for some reason I didn't think that would be possible. I have my router on W4S LPS 1, my ethernet cable goes direct to the MC200 which is battery powered at both ends. I found that removing the switch between the router and MC200 improved my SQ. I have my switch also powered by another W4S LPS1. Looks like Im exactly opposite of mcduman.
 

morricab

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Apr 25, 2014
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Hi All,
I just bought a PowerOak K2 battery bank to use with my Bluesound Vault streamer. This is a 50,000 mAH battery bank that has 20V/3A, 12V/2.5A and 4 x 5V/2.1A outputs. It also allows you to discharge while charging, so you could leave the charger hooked up and still get battery power, although it is probably cleaner disconnected.

I am not sure how many hours I will get out of it yet but my initial tests indicate significantly better sound than with the standard DC power supply (switcher). Given that the max consumption of my Streamer is 17 watts (I think this is the consumption when actually ripping cds) This thing should be able to run at least 15 hours on a charge if not more. The BlueSound node only consumes 3 watts (I think the Vault would be similar when only streaming) and when you consider what a laptop consumes then this battery should last a long time between charges.

The battery is Li ion and comes in a very nicely made aluminum chassis and it is quite compact and not too heavy at 1.3Kg.

I will report back more as the listening unfolds and also right now while my better DAC is being repaired I am using the built in DAC, which I thought was kind of crap but now it sounds at least acceptable...until I get my old one back. I am wondering then if it will consume even less power when I take the digital output instead of the analog outs.

To my knowledge, this is the most powerful of this easily portable class of battery bank. Of course, you can buy some large, off grid supplies and even power your whole system...if you really want clean power all the way around.
 

Empirical Audio

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Oct 12, 2017
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I have designed and sold LI battery supplies as well as SLA to work with my products. They were all eventually replaced with fast-reacting Hynes linear supplies that I modified. Never going back to batteries.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
 

Sablon Audio

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May 22, 2015
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Thanks for the input guys. I have ordered the parts in to add a dc input to the Airport Express and will try a few options.
 

mcduman

Well-Known Member
Aug 9, 2014
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Hi All,
I just bought a PowerOak K2 battery bank to use with my Bluesound Vault streamer. This is a 50,000 mAH battery bank that has 20V/3A, 12V/2.5A and 4 x 5V/2.1A outputs. It also allows you to discharge while charging, so you could leave the charger hooked up and still get battery power, although it is probably cleaner disconnected.

I am not sure how many hours I will get out of it yet but my initial tests indicate significantly better sound than with the standard DC power supply (switcher). Given that the max consumption of my Streamer is 17 watts (I think this is the consumption when actually ripping cds) This thing should be able to run at least 15 hours on a charge if not more. The BlueSound node only consumes 3 watts (I think the Vault would be similar when only streaming) and when you consider what a laptop consumes then this battery should last a long time between charges.

The battery is Li ion and comes in a very nicely made aluminum chassis and it is quite compact and not too heavy at 1.3Kg.

I will report back more as the listening unfolds and also right now while my better DAC is being repaired I am using the built in DAC, which I thought was kind of crap but now it sounds at least acceptable...until I get my old one back. I am wondering then if it will consume even less power when I take the digital output instead of the analog outs.

To my knowledge, this is the most powerful of this easily portable class of battery bank. Of course, you can buy some large, off grid supplies and even power your whole system...if you really want clean power all the way around.

almost all powerbanks use noisy switching voltage regulators after Li batteries connected in series. I would argue that:

1. for 6v and 12 v dc equipment vrla batteries are still better
2. for 3v3, 5v, 7 or 9v etc dc there are low noise, high pssr linear regulators, most notably the new lt304x family
 
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Sablon Audio

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May 22, 2015
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I do also wonder if many domestic routers / modems are a native 12v or have the voltage stepped down internally for whatever reason.
 

morricab

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Apr 25, 2014
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almost all powerbanks use noisy switching voltage regulators after Li batteries connected in series. I would argue that:

1. for 6v and 12 v dc equipment vrla batteries are still better
2. for 3v3, 5v, 7 or 9v etc dc there are low noise, high pssr linear regulators, most notably the new lt304x family

do you know for a fact that the PowerOak (MaxOak in english speaking countries) is using said regulators? I was unable to find any kind of information on how the voltages are being generated and regulated in this device. Or is this just your general experience?
 

barrows

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Jun 28, 2012
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Boulder, CO
I really hate batteries, while they are reliable way of getting things off the grid, I find well designed low noise power supplies based on AC to perform better, and to be way less of a PITA. On my router I built a custom ultra low noise/impedance supply, starting with a very high performance Daitron low leakage SMPS (yes, yes, I know, everyone will now suggest all SMPS are evil, just not the case though). Unfortunately the really good Daitron supplies appear to be unavailable now. Anyway, i dialed the output of the Daitron up ~14 VDC, and then followed it with a moderate size electrolytic cap, and a Belleson SPZ discrete regulator. I also made sure to ground the DC output to AC ground to shunt the high impedance leakage current. The result: µV levels of noise, and ultra low output impedance to my router. I compared to a full linear also with Belleson regulation and there was no difference.
BTW, I would not recommend those battery packs mentioned earlier in this thread (the ones marketed for charging up phones and powering other portable devices) as their outputs are realized via noisy switching DC/DC converters.
 

paul79

Well-Known Member
Nov 2, 2014
216
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258
OK, USA
www.manymoonsaudio.com
ME TOO man. I have never heard a batter anything, that didn't show glimpses of heaven for about 20 minutes max, then taper to garbage. Don't know if that makes sense, but that is what I think about them.
 

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