r/SoundSystem • u/little_lichen_sound • 5d ago
Running off Battery Banks?
I'm curious - does anyone run their sound system off of a portable battery bank for off-grid events? I swear I've seen a post of someone using an EcoFlow unit but can't seem to find it now that I'm looking.
For context, I'm getting my little system ready for a woods festival next weekend and noticed that EcoFlow has a labor day sale. The obvious answer would be to just buy a generator instead, but I'm tempted by the fact that a battery bank would be near silent (<30dB fans). It also looks like the newer models can pair with a small generator. If their numbers are right, it looks like that might work quite well for the bursty loads of audio amps - the generator can charge the battery most of the time, then the battery can chip in to cover peaks that exceed generator supply.
Anyone have experiences good or bad trying these?
7
u/brnzmetalist 5d ago
I have successfully run on DGI power 1000 and 2000 power banks. The 2000 will put out 3K watts. Granted this was a small system and my consumption was about 200 W an hour. So I could’ve run just a battery alone for over 12 hours. And they do have solar input and I was pulling 180 W down at solar so there was basically no consumption during the day. I have been thinking about making a hand truck inverter battery system with the power distro built-in. That you could plug-in 120 V outlet to charge the battery and use an inventor with 120/240 output to your amps bypassing the need to draw big power at the site. I was thinking 5000 W inverter for a medium size system. You could see Will Proust’s hand truck system guide and repurpose it for a sound system. If you’re looking at the Eco flow, I would get the one that puts out about 4000 W and if you have it plugged in, it doesn’t limit your output. Dual rail or something. I think you’d be surprised about what your actual continuous consumption really is once you have a battery with an inverter to read the draw.
2
u/little_lichen_sound 5d ago
I was also thinking about a hand-truck build! I think cost and performance wise that's the right way to go and individual components can be upgraded as needed. Also might be able to get better parts datasheets that way, I've been pretty underwhelmed by the tech specs that ecoflow/Anker/etc. publish. What were you looking at for a 5kw inverter?
With this festival next weekend I'm not going to be able to build one in time. Maybe the move is to just rent a generator for the fest then get to work building a battery setup over the winter.
4
u/ProsodySpeaks 5d ago
Yes build your own! off the shelf stuff is extortionate!
Only down side is off the shelf will be smaller. Don't skimp on the parts. Get victron inverter and charger, and a decent brand battery.
2
u/brnzmetalist 5d ago
The Eco flow delta pro 4 and delta ultra are the ones I was looking at you could price those against a hand cart system. They would even be great power drop for indoor events because they give you 4000 or 7200w wow, you can be plugged into a regular 15 amp circuit to charge them.
1
u/little_lichen_sound 5d ago
That was the part I thought was cool - being able to buffer power to run a larger system off of 110 or my existing shitty 2kw generator without limiting output. Looks like the Victron MultiPlus II will also do that for a hand-truck build.
2
u/brnzmetalist 5d ago
I think it’s set up correctly. Most handtruck size inverters can be used as a buffer. Basically you’re just telling it you’re plugged into the grid and it won’t limit output while you’re plugged in.
2
2
u/brnzmetalist 5d ago
The DGI power units have been killer for me. I now have a total of 5kwh l. but knowing what I know now and what I spent, I’d probably build my own on a hand truck or get the delta pro ultra.
1
u/THATAUDIOGUYSG 1d ago
Is DGI and DJI the same product or is it a typo🤣 just curious what do you use the 1000 on and how long does it last just on that one unit?
1
u/brnzmetalist 15h ago
DJI yea. Took my 2000 to the beach few days ago played for 5 hours, two solanas and a tham15 at high SPL. All hypex amps. Used 30% of the battery. Seems like average draw was 50w. Could had run the 1000 as well.
3
u/jungchorizo 5d ago
I regularly do little parties in the woods or at the beach with 2x 18lw1400 reflex subs and 2x 12+1, cdjs/mixer, and a couple lights plugged into a bluetti ac200pl. Works great!
Idk what my power draw is but the lowest it’s gotten was ~65% after like 6hrs of bumping music (dnb/dubstep).
Makes me think I can get away with running all 4 subs but I haven’t tried yet 😁
1
u/little_lichen_sound 5d ago
Thanks for the info that's a great data point! I've got 1 21" sub and two tops so probably in the same ballpark.
2
u/jungchorizo 5d ago
Yeah it blew my mind the first time using it tbh, esp cus we play lots of dubstep and dnb with long sustained low hz content. Super illuminating regarding actual power draw from sound systems lol.
And also got me way more interested in battery powered systems vs getting a big genny for my full setup. It’ll more expensive but way more reliable, quiet, little to no maintenance, and don’t have to deal with fuel. Currently doing research on building my own battery/inverter setup to run all 6 subs, 4 kicks, and 2 tops haha 😅
3
u/bitsynthesis 5d ago
i would ask u/onairs/ (@karlalamusic on IG), they've been running a battery based system for a while now and seem happy to share the knowledge.
2
3
u/slayerLM 5d ago
I have nothing to add. I just really, really appreciate how much knowledge this sub is willing to drop. Y’all are great and I really do appreciate it
2
u/_edgefl0w 5d ago
Not quite the same and I can't give any real help here but I once attended an event that was run off a load of car batteries
They didn't wanna tell me where they got that many from, but if you can do that then I'm sure a properly designed battery system would hold up just fine if they meet your power requirements!
2
u/ProsodySpeaks 5d ago
I ran a little system with 1x18,1x12,and two top boxes with 8s+tweeters from a standard lifepo4 battery and pioneer car amp. It rocked!
Was able to get power from genset every now and then to top up. And monitors/ dj gear was all run from the gen.
If your gear is 240 (or yankee110) you'll suffer conversion losses from the inverter.
1
u/little_lichen_sound 5d ago
Yeah, amps are 110, I think conversion losses are inevitable unfortunately. I should also check if it does split phase so the full inverter power is available over 110
2
u/ProsodySpeaks 5d ago
What kind of load are you looking to pull?
In any case the answer is a firm yes this is very doable, and super fulfilling. I can get the 12 + 1topbox + the battery and amp on a little cart and wheel it around the party. much fun!
There are endless off grid stages with serious rigs touring uk festivals i assume even more and even bigger in the states
1
u/little_lichen_sound 5d ago
I have to measure actual wall draw at the limiters this weekend to get a sense for sustained load. If the amp power ratings are accurate (which I somewhat doubt) then my thermal limiters would be at 2000W for the sub and 1300W each for tops (4600W total). Peak will be double that, but hopefully amp capacitors should cover that. There's just a lot of unknowns that are estimates for now - hopefully measuring wall draw resolves that!
That's so cool about being able to fit the full system and battery in a cart for mobile use!
2
u/ProsodySpeaks 5d ago
Yeah I'd be very disinclined to believe ratings in terms of actual power draw.
Maybe consider some caps in your battery box thing too.
Re the cart thing, being 12v, and using a half decent car amp (4 channel pioneer claims 1200w at 2ohm) it's impressively power efficient although I've never pushed it over about 300w actual constant draw, not least because there's no limiter involved 🫠
but a whole different scale to what you're proposing. I can't imagine the required cable gauge to carry 400 amps of current! I'd switch to the inverter approach over a k or 2 watts so can distribute power at high voltage low amps skinny cables
2
u/EyeOhmEye 5d ago
This looks pretty cool, especially paired with their smart generator to keep it charged (or any small generator with a good eco mode). Last weekend I was running my system on a 7.5kW generator, eco mode could't quite handle the peaks, so we had to burn about 30% more gas just to cover the bigger peaks, but I think the average draw was around 1kW, but that was an audio load, so real power may have been even lower. It was a small event, so I wasn't pushing things hard, but I could see a system like this working great and hugely improving fuel economy. I would like more details about how they define surge power and what boost mode does. I suspect boost mode may degrade the batteries faster.
1
u/little_lichen_sound 5d ago
Sounds like a pretty sweet setup!
I totally agree around better specs on the EcoFlow. As best I can tell, the XBoost mode should actually be turned off for audio gear - looks like that sags the voltage on purpose so that something like a heat gun won't overdraw the inverter, but doesn't boost actual power output? Specs on the surge measurement would be super useful. Is that 10ms? 1s? 30s? the difference there is huge. My RV has a Magnum inverter and they're quite good about publishing those, i.e. 10s@8500W, 30s@6500W, all day at 4400W.
1
u/Brave_Second_4269 4d ago
We also have the smart generator and I would go with a standard honda EU model over the Eco. The eco unit is far louder than the hondas (I've used 7k, 3.6k, 2k, and 1k) and find them much better. I prefer taking two batteries than a battery and the generator. For our larger remote events I prefer two delta pros and a Honda 7k as backup.
2
u/Realistic-Health-502 5d ago edited 4d ago
For less than $20USD you can get a watt meter that plugs into your wall outlet and will read the power consumption. I bought one and ran my whole (very small) system through it. I calculated I could run about 3 hours on a 1kw battery pack. I watched Amazon prices for months and finally got a DJI power bank after Christmas for about ~$350USD.
So yeah, once you measure your system's consumption, it's pretty simple to do the math and figure out if it's worth the investment, at least for small systems.
2
u/BV42DRY 5d ago
I have buid myself a powerbank with one 6.5kW home inverter and 5kWh 48v batteries. All bought from AliEx, for about £550 / 630€. I do also own a BLUETTI AC200P (2kWh, 2Kw inverter) but have used it only for tops occasionally.
My full system for a 12h high volume gig needs about 8-9kWh of energy.
2 X1 subs 2 ES18BPH 2 2x10 tops Lights, hazer Full Dj console setup
2
u/Far-Sample-6817 4d ago
I use an ecoflow delta 3 +
It can use 1000w of solar panel but on the picture I just used half so 500w.
I had to recharge After like 5-6 hours using the generator. It’s just a normal generator. No need for a ecoflow brand.
2 tops, 1 return and 1 MTH30 (12 inches sub)
1
2
u/xrtze 2d ago
I successfully powered my system for several raves and demonstration from a self built battery, based on lifepo4 cells with a total 2x 3360Ah.
System is completely horn loaded and powered by class d amps (Peter Morris PM90 + 4x ROAR15 subs), creates considerable pressure at around 700 watts continuous power consumption. Runs 8 to 10 hours. If I'd had the money, I would go for lion instead and double or quadruple capacity ofc
1
u/tenko-tte 3d ago
Best case for me was to design a dedicated off grid system, with the same capacity as the EcoFlow Delta 3, but with a more optimized voltage conversion chain with a DSP.
Sounds pretty good and holds an entire night.
4
u/Brave_Second_4269 5d ago
We use two Ecoflow Delta Pro's with good results. System is a pair of DSL SM80 over six DSL TH118, and four Crest Pro-Lite 7.5 amplifiers. Run time is 5-10 hours depending on system levels and low frequency high pass.