Thought I would add my experiences here of getting a battery-powered QC setup running, as I did run into some issues along the way.
I got the mission 529m and then the Anker 21000mah battery that everyone seems to suggest for powering these types of projects (HX Stomp, GT-1000 Core, etc). The Anker would not even power on the QC, it would get to the word 'Neural" on startup and then just shut off. I must have tried about 20 different times along with a few other batteries of that size and capacity I already owned, nothing worked. So I started researching other batteries and didn’t find much info on battery powering a QC but I did get into the Spark amp forums where lots of people were powering those with Laptop Battery Banks. I thought I would give it a go and purchase one of the recommended Krisdonia banks (part # in pictures) and it works perfectly! I’m currently getting about 8-10 hours (maybe more) of battery life and still haven’t been below 10%. The nice part about this unit is that you can plug it in to charge and it will power the QC at the same time making it essentially like powering off mains (but 100% isolated via the battery). I didn’t have any grounding or buzz issues but this would (I assume) also fix those for anyone as well.
One weird thing I did discover while waiting for the Battery bank though. I used the 529m with an iPad and a few other PD rated chargers and it would power on the unit and work great through headphones but when I connected it to FRFR powered speaker there was no output. I had to crank my FRFR and the QC up to full blast to hear anything which was still super quiet. I thought something was wrong so I plugged in the original QC power brick and almost blew my windows out lol. This led me down a rabbit hole of testing all the chargers I had. Even a 90W Macbook Pro charger for the latest model had the same issue…very strange since this should theoretically have way more juice than the battery pack, which doesn’t have this problem. I would assume there are some chargers that would work but I didnt want to buy any more stuff.
There are also DC ports on the Power bank that should be able to power the unit without the 529M but they are opposite polarity and I didn’t have crossover cables to try it with, so I am just using the USB-C output into the 529M. I’m interested to see if the DC out would also power any pedals at the same time, but haven’t gotten that far and won’t likely try anytime soon.
Hope this helps someone with similar goals. Since this is my first post it will only let me add one photo per post. I will add the other ones after this.
Thanks. The board is a Gator cases GBP-LAK-1 it’s super heavy duty and built like a tank. Fits the QC and pedal perfectly, it’s angled, and has lots of room beneath for mounting stuff.
Thanks for posting this. I have also used the 529M with various PD power sources and have found that in many cases the unit will power on and appear to be functioning normally, but volume at the output is very low. I had also tried a couple of other batteries, but no luck. I will definitely give your solution a try.
Not really. The QC is made to sit on a flat surface, either right on the floor, desk, or mounted to a pedalboard. It also has side vents. The velcro spaces both items out so there is still an air gap and the pedalboard itself is basically a huge heat sink. I’ve run it for an entire day multiple times and it’s never even been warm to the touch let alone hot.
Yep, you’re right and that’s one of the reasons why I used the 529m instead of DC power output. I didn’t want to have to worry or remember about cycling the correct voltage every time I turned it on. I’m going to order some of those cables and see about other pedals. I’d like to get a looper added to this setup but I’ve been holding out to see what’s added in v1.3 of CorOs which should come out in the next month (hopefully)
I noticed with my 10k blackstar battery bank that after so long of tinkering with presets at bedroom volume and turning the vol to half to have a blast caused my output to disappear although the tuner would still work .
I presume this caused the battery to drop to where the QC wasn’t getting enough juice.
Have you experimented at using your QC and higher vol outputs to test the 50k battery.
I’ll probably get me a 50k also but the poweroak k2 as 4 usb and a DC 12v
I haven’t had any volume drops with mine right down to about 10% left but I’ve never run the battery past that. I think you’re probably running into the same issue I did with the PD chargers, works with headphones but the outputs are pretty much silent. I’m guessing the QC needs a specific current to have full output power and the PD chargers were just slightly less and likely your battery as it discharges must dip below that too.
Not drastically that I’ve ever noticed. They are just line level signals though, I think they must be a pretty low percentage of power draw compared to the processors, screen, wifi, etc.
Now im unsure whether i need a PD type usb c to 12v dc cable like the Blind spot power pipe or a mission 529m which is a USB-PD converter.
The Krisdonia AC Power Bank Comes with 2 quick charge 3.0 USB ports ( automatically output 5V/9V/12V ) plus TYPE-C port ( 5V/9V/12V ) is this actually PD spec as doesnt say PD port in the specs.
Any ideas the Blindspot is cheaper but does say a powerbank PD usb-c port is required and is a positive tip so will need a converted as per the 529m you can select the voltage.
Im not entirely sure, thats not the same battery pack I have, close but slightly different. The specs on the USB ports all say 3A @ at 12V so in theory, they should work. However, some of the batteries and all of the chargers I had that didn’t work also said they put out that much. I don’t think many of these amazon companies publish honest specs. I suppose my answer would be both options “should” work but I can only confirm the exact parts that I have will.
