portable 160Gb/6+ hrs continuous access....no plug in!
 

I am posting something even I myself wont belief! Tekkeon MP1550 w 4X 2700 mAH NiMH batteries can drive my Harddrive LONGER than driving the N810.........6 plus hours with 33% juice left behind under CONTINUOUS access! I believe this is the first report that a tablet is hooked up with a harddrive WITHOUT plug-in! Succeed!

Similar system as posted here, http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...light=palmsize. Well, that one was plugged in. So, the next hurdle is to get rid of the plug. I tried several battery extenders as well as plugged in USB outlet of various laptops, big and small, all failed except the Tekkeon MP1550. YES! I can plug my 160 G palmsize HD into N810 and the y-tail plugged into the Tekkeon with 4X freshly charged 2700 mAH batteries and it worked! And it worked for 6 plus hours with continuous access without plug in!

Plug HD into your tablet using the straight tail, you will need a female to female adapter, http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...light=palmsize, connect the y-tail to your Tekkeon and turn on the Tekkeon. Now, your HD should have a steady light suggested there is enough juice. Turn your tablet into host mode, USB control or whatever you use will be fine, then momentrary plug and unplug the USB connection to the HD to 'wake' up the USB port..........that is it! You should see:

"USB device not supported"
then USB icon showed up on the task bar
then file manager came up with your HD shown.

The whole thing does not require ANY plug in. WOW, I am totally thrilled.

I copied 10 Gb music, yes, not 10 Mb, into the HD and ran it with media player continuously. And I can see the blinking light suggested the HD is being CONTINOUSLY accessed.........it ran all the ways down to 1 sq on the Tekkeon (power meter has 3 squares), about 33% juice left for 6 plus hrs. I stopped it before the power ran out. I worried what will happen to the HD when juice ran out.

I compared to this post, http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ad.php?t=20117, under extreme conditions, the Tekkeon can drive the HD longer than the tablet! I remember from physics 101, any moving part is going to use 'a lot' of energy. Well, the palmsize HD fares pretty good.

So, if one carries a few sets of 2700 mAH batteries, travelling with the tablet without plug in for 24 hrs is NOT going to be a big problem.

How does this fare with the 32 G SDHC, http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...d.php?t=21315?

Dollarwise, this setup is under $99! Spacewise, it is one continuous space, not 32G X 5. Convenientwise, it is NOT as good as the SDHC card though.

A picture tells a 1000 words, here we go,

One question I have: Why those big laptop batteries USB outlet CANNOT drive the palmsize HD but the Tekkeon can? It is intriguing/puzzling!

Hardware: palmsize harddrive and the rest of the stuff are listed here, http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...light=palmsize.

Tekkeon MP1550, http://www.amazon.com/Tekkeon-MP1550...8422427&sr=8-1.





enjoy,

bun

Re: portable 160Gb/6+ hrs continuous access....no plug in!
 

Yes. It also worked with 4X alkaline disposable batteries. I cannot believe a HD can be driven by disposable batteries. Wow, there must be a lot of technology added to those palmsize/small footprint HD. Nice work, Tekkeon!

Edit: 4X alkaline batteries, not fresh, age unknown, lasted 1.5 hr compared to 4X 2700 mAH batteries freshly charged lasted 6+ hours.

bun

Re: portable 160Gb/6+ hrs continuous access....no plug in!
 

I have successfully used a external harddrive without additional (external power). I bought a cyber mate "photo mate", which is a 2.5 enclosure + card reader + battery. (http://lc-power.de/)

It works pretty well - even the card reader works with the n800. I haven't done any stress tests - only bad thing is that the sd reader is not sdhc.

Re: portable 160Gb/6+ hrs continuous access....no plug in!
 

I am very interested in your system. I would like to have more info. What hard drive you have installed and what spec is your battery? and how long does it run? pics? I went to your link, it gives a power supply and there is no search function :(

bun

Re: portable 160Gb/6+ hrs continuous access....no plug in!
 

I found it. It is here, http://lc-power.de/images/upload/pdf/power_116.pdf.

Questions:

what is the capacity of the battery? and how do you charge it, via USB?
What kind of HD will it support and what is the harddrive interface/connector? and how big is the partition and how fast?

Pics?

Thanks for the info.

Edit: More info here, http://www.vesalia.de/, go product/search 25BD, $45.23 + S/H. Sounds like exactly what I am looking for. Would like to hear your experience with this item.

bun

Re: portable 160Gb/6+ hrs continuous access....no plug in!
 

hi
it charges both via supplied power plug + usb.
In the documentation it says that it automatically charges when plugged in to an usb - but it didn't complain when I plugged it into the n800 (via otg cable).

The version I have takes pata hd's. I have added an 160gb disk which I formattet as fat32.

There are "newer" versions out there that use sata + sdhc reader - loads on ebay - called digimate III


I will get back to you on how long it runs.

Re: portable 160Gb/6+ hrs continuous access....no plug in!
 

I have a MP1550 clone, the NOMA RX4 battery pack (which looks like your one, just white). It kept my N800 charged in the backcountry for three days, and it is currently powering my 160GB HD. Very nice little package. It also powers my mobile pentesting kit.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3136/...848fd1b9_m.jpg

Re: portable 160Gb/6+ hrs continuous access....no plug in!
 

finally got around to testing the thing.

I did a copy from my external sdhc card to the fully charged hd.
Everything wen't fine - but it only lasted for about an hour (transferring 3.37 GB in500 files).

After that I recharged and tried to play media directly off the hd - but this seemed to be too much for the N800. Seems that the usb transfer takes close to 100% cpu - so nothing left for playing media.

So all in all - you only get 1 hour out of the external hd solution I have.

Re: portable 160Gb/6+ hrs continuous access....no plug in!
 

I have listened to hours of MP3s off of my HD, which only scratched the surface of what I have available now, since I now have my entire 17GB MP3 collection on the HD. But yes, when the batteries get low, things get ugly.

I have found that I need 2500mAh+ batteries, fully charged. 2300mAh batteries didn't seem to have the necessary juice.

Re: portable 160Gb/6+ hrs continuous access....no plug in!
 

yeah - I have the MP1550 too, but just wanted to see how an "all in one" solution worked out.

to be honest, I actually think a 2.5 external HD is "old news" anyway.
With 16 gb sdhc card + lurking for a 64 gb corsair flash voyager usb pen (which hopefully will be released soon) - space shouldn't be a problem
;)

By the way, I use sanyo eneloop batteries. Only 2100mAh - but they don't lose power the same way normal nihm's do - so a week after a recharge they probably have more power left.

Re: portable 160Gb/6+ hrs continuous access....no plug in!
 

@nikolajhendel. It lasts only an hour, right? I suspect that, as it is rated 1350 mAH.

@qole when battery goes low, the HD light will flicker between red and green. So I do not have to listen to the click, click, click....

I have tried many battery extenders and laptop batteries and even big big ugly monster battery. Surprise, only the Tekkeon MP 1550 works. and only 2700 mAH batteries work, not even 2500 mAH batteries. And big laptop batteries certainly has enough juice to make drive those tiny palmsize HD. No, it does not work. I guess the make and break is the mA from the USB port. Anyhow, the setup I have seems to be able to run continuously 6+ hrs for every set of 2700 mAH batteries, and will run forever provide you can keep up with a set 4 x batteries very.

4X 2700 mAH seems to be doing the trick for extHD, would it be better for 6X battery or even 8X battery. I truly think so. However, I have NOT come across such thing, i.e, 6x or 8x battery extender with USB output. Anyone?



bun

Re: portable 160Gb/6+ hrs continuous access....no plug in!
 

yep - one hour only.
mAh rating sholdn't really make a difference regarding working with the ext HD. Higher mAh shold only mean that they pack mpre charge = last longer.
Regarding number of batteries, you only need four. They are connected to deliver a 5 v charge.
6 or 8 batteries would give too high a charge.

Re: portable 160Gb/6+ hrs continuous access....no plug in!
 

My old laptop spontaneously rebooted when driving my USB HD! I think the HD drew too much power... :eek:

Re: portable 160Gb/6+ hrs continuous access....no plug in!
 

@nikolajhendel:"mAh rating sholdn't really make a difference regarding working with the ext HD. Higher mAh shold only mean that they pack mpre charge = last longer.
Regarding number of batteries, you only need four. They are connected to deliver a 5 v charge.
6 or 8 batteries would give too high a charge"
================================================== ===========

Some yes and some no. There is a threshold to kick start a HD, I think it is called "peak surge" and there is juice to do work, "continuous load". When the threshold is reached, a continuous spinning HD may continual to spin, but once it stops, it will not be able to get up. So, a lower mA battery extender may stopped much earlier than the juice is actually finished.

You probably think ALL USB AC adapter are born equal, right? I do, AC adapter means unlimited juice. Well, I was dead wrong. USB adapter that rated low, I got a couple, one rated 200-300 mA, another 350 mA, are NOT able to drive my HD. The one rated 1A easily drive the HD.

I have a battery inverter, that has 2 outlets. one produces household current, 115V AC and another USB outlet of 5V 350 mA DC. The 115 V outlet can drive a big 3.5 in 750G HD, but the dumb 350 mA USB outlet is NOT able to spin the tiny palmsize HD.

4X battery gives about 5.5V, you are right, they do not have to do anything about the V. For 6X or 8X that would give much higher than 5V one may have to do some 'step down' conversion. But I have eyes on the ampere. I guess an electrical engineer may be better to judge whether that is a good proposal.

@qole:"My old laptop spontaneously rebooted when driving my USB HD! I think the HD drew too much power... "
================================================== =====
I used to think so. In your case, if it made your laptop reboot, the power consumption logic is proabably valid. As I play with battery more, I start to believe, power consumption is only part of the game, threshold rating is also a factor.

bun

Re: portable 160Gb/6+ hrs continuous access....no plug in!
 

bunanson
- I forgot about the peak surge. Not that I have any knowledge about the subject, but there is a "warning" when using the sanyo eneloop that it can damage especially flashes, as the peak surge is so good that the flash can burn out (because the flash gets recharged too fast).

Re: portable 160Gb/6+ hrs continuous access....no plug in!
 

Cool thread!

I'm really glad I'm not the only one doing stuff like this! ;)

One of the first things I did after getting the USB adapters for my N810 was to set up the exact same thing here on my desk to see how it would all work, and of course it all does.
For my brief test I used a battery pack that takes 4 "AA" batteries and has a USB port connected to a hub to pass power to a little 1.8" HD I have in a tiny enclosure.

I have no idea how long the setup would run for, but to me it's not an issue because I would never transport all the stuff anywhere to set up in the field.
It's just too much of a kludge!

As already stated 16GB flash stuff will be hitting (and subsequently price dropping) soon enough.

While I'm truly impressed with all the stuff you can attach to the N810, I'm also impressed by the fact that it really doesn't NEED any of that stuff to be any better than it already is.

Still good to know you can do all this if you want to though. :)

Re: portable 160Gb/6+ hrs continuous access....no plug in!
 

I've successfully set all of this up (with velcro) on the bus, so this kludge does work in the field...

Re: portable 160Gb/6+ hrs continuous access....no plug in!
 

What brand/$/where you got your 1.8" I am thinking to get one curious to see whether 1.8" is "easier". However, the 1.8" HD USB is getting real close to the flash price. The cheapest I can find is 80G 1.8" for $80 while 32G flash is still running $100.

I also run around with my setup, everything is in a camera bag and works fine.

bun

Re: portable 160Gb/6+ hrs continuous access....no plug in!
 

I wouldn't go the 1.8 way.
I had a 1.8 hd a few years ago, very portable - but slooooow.
But then again, I'm going the flash way - 32gb (and hopefully soon 64gb) usb sticks are enough for me.

Re: portable 160Gb/6+ hrs continuous access....no plug in!
 

I have a little 20GB that I pulled from a demo Magellan GPS unit that was being thrown away.
I think it's the same drive used in older iPods as well.
I simply did a search for the drive and found a place online that carried the special USB enclosure it required due to it's different pin layout.

Also I apologize. I meant toting that stuff simply isn't for me in particular.
As I stated before It most certainly does work, and of course would also do so in the field. I didn't mean to imply otherwise.

Also, my drive is so small comparatively that I'm going to hold out for a class 4 or above 16GB Micro SD when it hits.