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Cold weather night lapse tips?

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#1 storm303
Hello,

I attempted a few forum searches and read those threads but looking for more advice on cold-weather, long-duration night time-lapse. Since these shoots take so long and I hike in pretty far, would be great to not fail on first trial...

I have a DP Slider and Sapphire Pro with NMX controller and the original DP motors paired with a Canon 5D4.

I have a Case Relay and 10000mAh Anker power bank for the Canon camera, and an 8000mAh DP power bank for the motion hardware.

In ~40 degree weather I was able to get 3 hours of time doing shoot-move-shoot, 2 axis motion at 35 sec intervals, no heavy lifts and power save on- before I aborted the shoot. All batteries had half or more capacity left. I know in cold, this will all change so keeping batteries warm is a must, but how much will the performance suffer?

How do you suggest attaching hand warmers so they will not overheat the batteries but keep them performing ok?

Anyone have experience with power usage of the DP slider bundle for 2 or 3 axis shoot move shoot motions (power save off, no heavy lifts) with one move say every thirty or thirty-five seconds? How many hours can I expect an 8000 or 10000 mAh battery to move the motors if kept reasonably warm?

Any other cold weather shooters with tips on how to get 6-8 hours or more out of this hardware without lugging around a truck battery?

Thanks in advance.
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#2 Ralph
Hello,
I recently did a time lapse with 1200 shots at minus 15 degrees Celsius over 5 hours. So every 15 seconds a shot. I used a SCYO slider and two Stage R from DP. The Stage R is the predecessor of the Sapphire Pro. All three engines I operated in power-saving mode, since I had only a small slope. I connected the whole bundle to an XT power bank with 23000 mAh. The power bank I put in a small insulated bag. In the bag I have done two Multiwärmer (9 x 13) of The Heat Company. Since I have no case relay, I had to swap the battery of the camera during the time lapse. This is not a problem with a 15 second interval. In addition, I have a lens heater from CooWoo connected to the power bank. After 5 hours, the power bank still had a capacity of 11%. Most of the power has consumed the lens heater. Without the heater, the DP Bundle could easily last for 6 to 8 hours. Maybe you should think about getting a bigger Powerbank. With the 10000 mAh it could be a little short. I hope I could help you with this experience a little in your planning.
I let Google translate the text, sorry for that

Many Greetings,
Ralph
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#3 Gunther
Operating everything from a power bank which is located inside a backpack for insulation would also be my advice. Usually this is enough, I worked whole nights like that with -20°C when shooting northern lights. You can add simple hand warmers (those that you heat up in boiling water) and put them into the bag with the powerbank.
I also found out that the camera batteries are quite robust to the cold. With my Nikon D750s I could shoot timelapse for hours even with the internal batteries in the cold.
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#4 storm303
Thank you all, life circumstances kept me from remembering to revisit this thread! Humble apologies and the info is very useful.
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#5 Gunther
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