Now that I have a motorized GoTo mount I need a way to have power when I’m out of reach of power cords. There’s power packs sold for telescopes, but they are pretty high priced for what you get, plus the long term reliability is questionable based on online reviews. Many stores sell power packs of various sizes, but they are generally loaded with unneeded features such as jumper cables and small air compressors.
One of the local MAS members has a blog and wrote a few posts about his power solution. I shamelessly stole his idea and scaled it back a little.
My setup has a 12V – 22 AH battery ($40) and a splitter with three cigarette lighter type sockets plus a USB charger port and voltage display built in ($16). I added a single socket adapter to connect the splitter to the battery ($7) and 2-pin quick disconnect SAE connector ($7) that matches the connector on my battery charger to make recharging easy. I got all of this stuff on Amazon. I got really lucky at Walmart’s clearance aisle where the had a camera bag ($7) that had a sleeved area that perfectly fit my battery and has extra room for the rest of the parts. The total cost was $77.
To put it together all I did was put new ring terminals on the ends of the four wires that connect to the battery to match the terminals, then attached them. This took all of 10 minutes to put together and the whole setup weighs less than 13 pounds.
