Any ideas for Zoombak extra battery life / external battery

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Zoombak Personal GPS Locator

A Universal GPS locator for tracking pets, items and people. Manufactured by Zoombak, now a Securus Inc company.

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Blair @blair85883

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Gepost: 14 feb. 2011

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Any ideas for Zoombak extra battery life / external battery

Has anyone come up with a way to attach an external battery without directly soldering a large battery into the internal battery contacts?

The battery packs Zoombak sells only gives me about 5 days of tracking. Also, they're pretty expensive all considering.

Optimally, I would like to connect an external battery via the mini USB that Zoombak uses to power. I could just splice one of the power cords.

Any thoughts or ideas are appreciated!

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mayer @mayer

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Gepost: 15 feb. 2011

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This may be exactly what you're looking for for the 520: https://shop.zoombak.com/zbcart/index.ph...

For the 521 use this one: https://shop.zoombak.com/zbcart/index.ph...

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They also have car chargers for both the 520 & 521: https://shop.zoombak.com/zbcart/index.ph...

15 feb. 2011 door mayer

Mayer, thank you for the information. Actually, I already have a battery box for the 520 and it provides approximately 5 days of service with a full internal battery and lithium AA external batteries. I'm actually attempting to figure out a way I can boost battery life to approximately 2 weeks at minimum. Unfortunately, Zoombak offers no external system or ability to boost battery life beyond the AA external pack they offer.

16 feb. 2011 door Blair

I don't know what the power requirement is for your unit but you might consider a larger laptop external battery pack such as this one: http://www.amazon.com/Lenmar-PPU1619-Uni...

16 feb. 2011 door mayer

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They also have car chargers for both the 520 & 521: https://shop.zoombak.com/zbcart/index.ph... — mayer
Mayer, thank you for the information. Actually, I already have a battery box for the 520 and it provides approximately 5 days of service with a full internal battery and lithium AA external batteries. I'm actually attempting to figure out a way I can boost battery life to approximately 2 weeks at minimum. Unfortunately, Zoombak offers no external system or ability to boost battery life beyond the AA external pack they offer. — Blair
I don't know what the power requirement is for your unit but you might consider a larger laptop external battery pack such as this one: http://www.amazon.com/Lenmar-PPU1619-Uni... — mayer

oldturkey03 @oldturkey03 Rep: 781,5k 1,1k 893 2,3k · Answer 1 · 2011-02-15T02:48:28-07:00

oldturkey03 @oldturkey03

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The trick here is to figure out the wiring of the mini USB to make sure an external power supply get the right connection without short circuiting it. Once you know the pinout you can create a power cable form whatever power source you decide. Here is the "common" pinout for the mini USB. http://pinouts.ru/Devices/mini-USB_pinou...[The trick here is to figure out the wiring of the mini USB to make sure an external power supply get the right connection without short circuiting it. Once you know the pinout you can create a power cable form whatever power source you decide. Here is the "common" pinout for the mini USB. http://pinouts.ru/Devices/mini-USB_pinou.... Monitoring for 5 days not enough? Wow. Must be quite a story:-) anyhow, good luck.

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This is more of what I'm trying to figure out. I'm thinking what I might try is to measure the voltage output from the ZoomBak battery box and splice a same voltage lithium ion battery pack to one of the power cords and voilà! Ultimately I would like to obtain two weeks of tracking so I'm thinking that I would need a substantial battery.

16 feb. 2011 door Blair

Also, I suspect the internal batteries that Zoombak uses are not of the highest quality. I bet by replacing the internal battery with a higher quality equivalent could boost tracking life by a day. That would be a good prophylactic for those quick 24-hour tracks that go bad.

16 feb. 2011 door Blair

Blair, monitoring something (or someone) for the length of time will require some serious engineering. Since you are very mysterious about your task I can only throw some general things out here that I would be thinking of. Is your object powered by any power source (i.e. a vehicle)? Any chance of tapping into that power source? Any chance for a solar charger? Is your object big enough to use multiple batteries connected by a battery switch that allows switching the batteries at a certain amperage to a new battery if connect in parallel? How stealth does your black ops have to be? The parts and pieces are all out there, just a matter of finding the right ones for your ops. You also realize that the link mayer suggested will give you an extra 10 days per pack, so that is pretty close to your goal. and if you take one of these power extenders and modify the power connection from the existing 4 AA batteries and just add 2 packs of additional four batteries to it, just give you plenty of mAh for your expeditionary tracking.

16 feb. 2011 door oldturkey03

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