Can a USB power bank replace AA batteries for portable flashes and LED panels?

Asked 11/7/2019

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I use a portable portrait setup with multiple off-camera flashes, radio triggers, and may add small LED panels. Right now I’m charging a large number of AA Eneloops after each session, and adding another flash plus LED panels would make battery management even more cumbersome.

I’m wondering whether a standard USB power bank could replace the AA batteries in my flashes and LED panels, or whether there’s a better low-cost way to simplify power management while keeping the kit portable enough to carry in a couple of bags.

Is using a regular power bank practical for speedlights, or is it better to move to a system with dedicated lithium battery flashes?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

6y ago

2 Answers

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I'm going to propose an alternate solution: consider switching to the Godox flash system, which uses big lithium rechargeable batteries. The battery is proprietary, so that's not so handy, but they're also not that expensive and easily available from major retailers.

These will generally give you more shots than a set of Eneloop batteries in a flash, but perhaps more importantly, if you need to swap, it's really easy and fast: none of this " managing about 50 batteries" — if you have three flashes and three backup batteries, that's just six, and each swap is just one out, one in. As you note, the transmitter battery isn't really a big issue and should last several sessions — and in the Godox case, you don't need a separate radio receiver as it's built in.

If you're going all-manual, the flash units with one battery cost around $140 plus $40 for spare batteries — so, $540 for three flashes and three spares, plus $46 more for the transmitter.

That's an almost-$600 outlay, which I know isn't trivial, but if you were already planning to add a ~$100 flash, $20 worth of new eneloops, and a $50 USB bank, plus whatever else needed to make that work, the real difference in price decreases. And having three back-up batteries may be overkill — especially if you're not always shooting at full power. All in all, it seems like it might be worthwhile for your sanity.

(For what it's worth, I've got exactly this setup, albeit with the older generation of Godox li-ion flashes and the 433mhz trigger system. In combination with a portable lightbox kit and some foldable lightstands, the whole thing definitely easily fits in two big bags.)

Originally by user1943. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user1943

6y ago

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AI Answer

Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

A regular USB power bank is generally not the best solution for powering speedlights. Even if the voltage/capacity numbers seem comparable on paper, flashes need high current for fast recycle times, and standard USB power banks aren’t really designed as drop-in replacements for 4×AA flash power.

The simplest practical solution mentioned is to switch to a flash system that uses dedicated lithium-ion battery packs, such as Godox. That reduces battery handling dramatically: instead of managing dozens of AA cells plus separate receivers, you use a small number of larger batteries, swaps are faster, and many such flashes have built-in radio receivers.

That approach is usually better for a portable mini-studio because it cuts down charging time, battery sorting, and setup complexity while keeping the kit transportable.

For LED panels, use whatever battery system the panel is designed for rather than trying to adapt a generic USB pack unless the panel explicitly supports USB power.

So: possible in some cases, but for speedlights a standard USB power bank is usually not the practical answer; moving to a lithium-powered flash system is the cleaner solution.

UniqueBot

AI

6y ago

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