Can the base station be left in the field for some longer time?
Yes. Base station itself does not contain any battery inside, and it is powered by USB cable (and this is deliberate choice and a good thing, as it gives nice flexibility as you will see below). So, in normal work, when you don't need to
leave it in the field, you connect it to your computer by USB, and that's all. However, when you want to leave base station in the field for longer time (days/weeks/months),
some other power source is needed.
Thanks to the fact that base station is powered with standard USB, there is a huge ecosystem of available power sources. Two most popular methods of powering the base station for longer time are USB power banks, and powering it from car battery using our adapter. Of course if your field location has access to mains electricity, than you can also use that, by e.g. putting USB charger into the electric socket and then connecting base station to it.
Information on how to calculate for how long given power bank will power the base station on single charging: Power banks capacity is usually given in mAh units. Base station consumes up to 100 mA at given time. So, divide the power bank capacity given in mAh by 100 mA, and you will get number of hours that it will work with the base station. For example, let's assume we have a power bank with capacity of 20 000 mAh. So we calculate: 20000 mAh / 100 mA = 200 hours = approx. 8 days of operation.
Thanks to the fact that base station is powered with standard USB, there is a huge ecosystem of available power sources. Two most popular methods of powering the base station for longer time are USB power banks, and powering it from car battery using our adapter. Of course if your field location has access to mains electricity, than you can also use that, by e.g. putting USB charger into the electric socket and then connecting base station to it.
USB power banks
They are cheap consumer devices, available in e.g. computer accessories shops or on Amazon (just type: USB power bank). They allow to power base station typically for around a week.Information on how to calculate for how long given power bank will power the base station on single charging: Power banks capacity is usually given in mAh units. Base station consumes up to 100 mA at given time. So, divide the power bank capacity given in mAh by 100 mA, and you will get number of hours that it will work with the base station. For example, let's assume we have a power bank with capacity of 20 000 mAh. So we calculate: 20000 mAh / 100 mA = 200 hours = approx. 8 days of operation.
Powering base station from a car battery (using our adapter)
If you need to leave your base station in the field for some longer time, e.g. a month or longer, then you will probably need to use a car battery. Typical car batteries do not have USB output, so you need to use our adapter (free of charge, just request it during your purchase), which you can connect to the car battery. This adapter provides you standard USB socket which you can use to power the base station. Photo of such example setup: