I've received a PD power bank that looks like it could work (Anker Nano Power Bank 22.5W), and the camera should arrive in the next couple of days.

To test the fit, I'll need to remove the optical cables from the A1 housing, but I'm not sure how theses work.

Do I just need to unscrew the two nuts, and then the cables can be removed without any risk to the housing?
Thanks

Edited June 5Jun 5 by bghazzal

11 minutes ago, bghazzal said:

Do I just need to unscrew the two nuts, and then the cables can be removed without any risk to the housing?
Thanks

Dont unscrew the nuts. They are part of the housing construction and holds the fiber connectors outside the housing and have o-rings in the construction.

You need to just pull the led's (unless they are glued or something) out. Mine (trt) are just pushed in, not sure about other brands.

Here is mine without led's:

Edited June 5Jun 5 by Sokrates

5 minutes ago, Sokrates said:

Dont unscrew the nuts. They are part of the housing construction and holds the fiber connectors outside the housing and have o-rings in the construction.

You need to just pull the led's (unless they are glued or something) out.

Here is mine without led's:

blob:https://imgur.com/76427353-7e9c-4e91-86f9-3cb6dfe6cfcc

You should also probably remove the trigger as well - is it an UWT trigger or some other type? What are the cables attached to?

5 minutes ago, Chris Ross said:

You should also probably remove the trigger as well - is it an UWT trigger or some other type? What are the cables attached to?

bghazzal's pictures on previous page show the cable is just hanging, with a connector in the end so i'm sure its like my trt one, trigger in the camera hot shoe and connect it to the cables when sliding in.

1 hour ago, Sokrates said:

bghazzal's pictures on previous page show the cable is just hanging, with a connector in the end so i'm sure its like my trt one, trigger in the camera hot shoe and connect it to the cables when sliding in.

expect you're right, I couldn't see the connector which is why I mentioned it.

Thank you both - yes, that was easier than I thought 😃 I just pulled on the cables and the fiber optic cables slid out

The power bank fits - now I need to test it with the camera to see it it works.
If it does it will just be a question of routing a flat USB cable.

The powerbank I got is this one:
https://www.anker.com/products/a1653-usb-c-portable-charger-5000mah?variant=42733234258070

Capacity: 5,000mAh

USB-C Output: 5V⎓3A / 9V⎓2.22A / 10V⎓2.25A

Total Output: 18W Max

It has a dual output, male on the length (which I plan on using) and female on the side.

I ordered a Ribbon Flat USB-C Data Cable 3A 10Gbps female to male and male to male, we'll see.

Edited June 5Jun 5 by bghazzal

As a follow-up, I can confirm the Anker Nano above powers the A7SIII. Handshake works and it charges the battery when idle. I haven't tried filming in 4K 120fps yet but don't there's no reason it shouldn't work to extend in-cameri battery life.
Now i need to find a good ribbon cable for a housing setup.

Edited June 6Jun 6 by bghazzal

As an update, my camera tray finally arrived today and I got the camera in the housing for the first time.

I can confirm it works - the Anker powebank fits in the housing and powers/charges the camera - the only thing I will need to look out for is cable routing, to make sure they don't get in the way of any gear operation.
I used an 20cm aliexpress 10Gbps ribbon cable for the powerbank. It fits with HDMI cable plugged in (I used a Nauticam HDMI cable rather than my Weefine screen's, as the Nauticam cable is shorter and faces the right way for my camera's HDMI port)





Here is the A7SIII in its NA-A1 housing, with the Anker battery pack connected and a Weefine WED-5 Pro screen connected, currently vaccum testing the whole thing (I have the 28-60 in a 100mm port, hence the nasty vignetting - I'll set up the 100mm later today)






Depending on camera battery / use, the powerbank charges the battery or, when it gets low, extends battery life. Camera battery was at 65% and it's now up to 78%

cheers

Edited June 27Jun 27 by bghazzal

As an update, the Anker power bank solution has an Achilles' heel: auto power-off. When a device is off or drawing very little current, the power bank turns off and needs to be restarted by pressing a button.

Other than turning it on before diving (= opening the housing) or leaving the camera on all the time, even when transiting to the dive site (= defeating the purpose of extending battery life), I don't see a practical solution.

10 hours ago, bghazzal said:

As an update, the Anker power bank solution has an Achilles' heel: auto power-off. When a device is off or drawing very little current, the power bank turns off and needs to be restarted by pressing a button.

Other than turning it on before diving (= opening the housing) or leaving the camera on all the time, even when transiting to the dive site (= defeating the purpose of extending battery life), I don't see a practical solution.

Apparently Anker power banks have a trickle charge mode designed to keep low power devices active, you could try to see if you can activate it on yours perhaps though it says it only last two hours. Most applications for always on power banks seem to be to run low power devices which use less power than the bank cut off level.

There are keep alive modules available but they only seem to work with lower power devices and not compatible with PD. It might be possible to plug one into a power bank and draw your PD current through a separate port?

7 minutes ago, Chris Ross said:

There are keep alive modules available but they only seem to work with lower power devices and not compatible with PD. It might be possible to plug one into a power bank and draw your PD current through a separate port?

Unfortunately all those devices (using the 555 timer) work only if the powered device is on. So, in this case if you shut down the camera the keep alive device doesn't send the pulse.

As tou wrote he could connect the keep alive on another port but it need a minimum resistance load as a small led or a resistor.

Edit:

Another test to be done is using the camera sleep functionality instead of powering it off. """Maybe"""" the small amount of current drawn is enough to keep the power bank awake.

Edited 21 hours ago21 hr by Davide DB

13 hours ago, Chris Ross said:

Apparently Anker power banks have a trickle charge mode designed to keep low power devices active, you could try to see if you can activate it on yours perhaps though it says it only last two hours. Most applications for always on power banks seem to be to run low power devices which use less power than the bank cut off level.

There are keep alive modules available but they only seem to work with lower power devices and not compatible with PD. It might be possible to plug one into a power bank and draw your PD current through a separate port?

13 hours ago, Davide DB said:

Unfortunately all those devices (using the 555 timer) work only if the powered device is on. So, in this case if you shut down the camera the keep alive device doesn't send the pulse.

As tou wrote he could connect the keep alive on another port but it need a minimum resistance load as a small led or a resistor.

Edit:

Another test to be done is using the camera sleep functionality instead of powering it off. """Maybe"""" the small amount of current drawn is enough to keep the power bank awake.

The one I use doesn't have a trickle down mode unfortunately, and it's the only one which fits in the housing.
I ran a test this morning, plugging in the powerbank and turning on the camera but not using it.
Powerbank stayed on for about 20 minutes charging the camera (which went into sleep mode) before shutting down.
I first saw the battery LEDs were off but the camera charging LED was still on - and when I activated the camera it was still charging.

However I came back 15 minutes later and the this time the camera charging LED was off, and the camera was running on normal camera battery, powerbank completely off. I didn't check levels but I'm guessing battery level had reached 100%, so nothing was happening and the powerbank shut off completely.

I ran other tests, basically camera on or off it's impossible to get past the 15 minute mark.

It will work fine while diving, it's just that I like to pull the vaccum early before diving, so this limits the application quite a bit.

I'm really curious about the keep alive devices and might try one.

Ideally I would need a battery pack which only turns on as the camera is turned on and pulling energy, just not sure how practical this is.

Edited 4 hours ago4 hr by bghazzal

51 minutes ago, bghazzal said:

I'm really curious about the keep alive devices and might try one.

Ideally I would need a battery pack which only turns on as the camera is turned on and pulling energy, just not sure how practical this is.

They might work but they need an additional load on top of the onboard pulse load. If you get one consider the adjustable load one. I think the PD spec is what is killing this, any low power stay on option assumes you only want to draw a little power.

If the camera can last one full dive on a fresh battery the path of least resistance might to plug it into a big power bank PD rated via USB bulkhead. Of course this will compete with using an external monitor and vacuum system unless you can find one of the offset vacuum valves which allow vacuum and bulkhead on one M16 hole. Crazy price of $US590 to manufacture one on demand.