I must apologize for not delivering. I’ve somehow misplaced or lost the adapter I was using so I’ve ordered another and will test and report in detail as soon as I’m able.
In the meantime, I will say that I’ve been very happy with both power banks and have become quite the fan of Baseus power delivery products.
-The smaller blue one is : Baseus Power Bank, 65W 20000mAh Laptop Portable Charger (model PPADM65UL)
-The flat black one is : Baseus Laptop Power Bank, 100W 20000mAh Blade USB C Portable Laptop Charger (model PPBLD100-X)
-I also own this “power strip” cable with US outlet plug : Baseus USB C Charger PowerCombo 65W - 6 in 1 Travel Power Strip (model PSZM-PowerCombo)
Disclaimer : I am not affiliated with Baseus and nothing was sent to me gratis for testing or review. I just happen to be one of those that enjoy mentioning to others when I’m especially pleased with performance of a product.
no worries and no rush, my digitakt is waiting for me at a relatives house that I won’t reach until thurs, I’m just trying to narrow down all of these battery options
I just received my first Elektron – the Digitakt 2, and I’m thrilled with it. However, there’s a catch: I love making sketches outdoors, and the Digi doesn’t have a built-in battery. I’ve searched through tons of information online, and there are many recommendations for the previous version of the Digitakt.
Are these recommendations still relevant for the Digitakt 2? If anyone has already set up their portable rig, please share your experience. All these cables and power banks are expensive, and I don’t want to make a mistake when buying them. But even more, I don’t want to damage my Digi. I’ve read that it could even get fried this way.
A lot of these recommendations are indeed expensive, and with extra converter cables they also waste more capacity and become even more expensive.
Since I’ve gotten into camera gear, I’ve found there’s many solutions.
One of the easiest is the NP-F battery plate, all of them have a 12V and 7.4/8V DC output with a simple barrel jack so all you need is a regular barrel jack cable(guitar pedal power cables).
They have holes in the bottom so you can screw them to the bottom of a Digitakt or the side of an Octatrack. A good brand for these is Smallrig, but solid cheaper options are available in both plastic and aluminium. There’s also options with USB-A and C. Just search Amazon for “NP-F battery plate” or ask your local camera store.
The NP-F batteries come in 4 different sizes so you can choose the capacity you like.
Get the batteries from a manufacturer who also sells video lights, those often use better quality cells. A cheap example is Falcon Eyes.
Hope this will help some of you, and save some money and e-waste at the same time.
Tested this evening with this blue battery bank : https://a.co/d/f2rnD3m
I used the USB C adapter and a standard USB C to USB C cable and the power bank was charged to 100%.
Again, this is the adapter : https://a.co/d/23Rq8TQ
Due to me not being able to stand over the machine working, I played a few patterns continuously. Every 15 minutes or so I switched patterns and made a few changes to somehow (weakly) mimic me working with the device. I ran it continuously for one hour tracked with a timer on my phone.
After one hour of continuous play, I had only depleted the battery bank 10%. It now reads 90% full.
I am not knowledgeable enough to understand if this results in close to 10 hours of power service on one charge … I don’t know if charge depletes faster as it decreases or etc.
I hope my poorly executed testing helps give at least an estimate of how useful this battery bank, a power adapter and cable can be for gaining freedom from a wall outlet.
For me, I like the potential of being able to work outdoors with the Digitakt 2 without having to rely on plug-in power.
I don’t have experience with the ripcord and am not knowledgeable to understand necessary power output from battery banks.
What I do understand though is that we may wish to take into account the mAh rating. mAh is pretty much the capacity of the battery… or how long it will produce power before it runs out and will require recharging.
For this smaller battery and if it could produce enough to power your machine, 5000 mAh may not be enough to carry on for the amount of time you could require… my guess is 60-90 minutes or less playtime? Another consideration is that batteries are often rated (by the manufacturer) higher than what they will actually deliver. I learned this during a past hobby of building radio control vehicles where I would employ lithium polymer batteries to run my gear. A 5000mAh LiPo pack would get me about 8-10 minutes of runtime on my radio control ground vehicles.
I hope my limited knowledge is helpful to you.
Thank you for your reply! Especially while working on the go I wouldn’t need more than 90 mins. Having a tiny battery would make things more portable for me.
I always leave the cable in my Baseus chargers and have never noticed discharge without having power draw. My first guess is that you could have a faulty product being that I have purchased a bad powerbank in the past and due to the nature of battery tech, it’s not uncommon.
On the other hand, I just read here that this may be normal function:
" 2. You Have a Lightning Cable Always Connected
According to customer reports, when Lightning cables, especially USB-C to Lightning cables, are plugged into a power bank’s USB-C port, they drain a tiny amount of electricity, which can be enough to trick some power banks into remaining powered on and slowly discharge.
However, discharge caused by a connected USB-C to Lightning cable is only plausible with power banks equipped with low-current charging (trickle charging). The power banks that don’t have this feature automatically shut down the power supply under a specific value."
There is a wealth of information at the links either way and probably worth reviewing especially if we use to charge low current devices.
Ripcord working fine here FWIW. The one they claim is Elektron compatible. Considering they say it will power a Syntakt (claimed to need 2A @ 12V) it certainly shouldn’t show any problems with DT2, and it hasn’t so far.
Thanks for your detailed reply! In this case it is a c to c cable, not lightning. I am charging the powerbank now and gonna leave it afterwards with nothing connected. First see how that goes, will report back.
Sorry to be the lazy one, but would my Ripchord and Powerbank that work with DN and OG DT also work with DT II? Is the power consumption of DT II any higher or different?
