I needed a good battery to power my Xiegu G90, so that I could carry it up hills and talk to strangers in my bid to join the SOTA community.
In 2023 the general trend for portable lighteweight power is to buy a *premium* battery like the Bioenno pack–which are designed specifically for this purpose–or to go with a cheap *amazon special*. LiPo pillow packs designed for RC cars/aircraft can deliver good power-to-weight, however they are rumoured to have a fire risk, would need a regulator to make 12-13.8v and, most importantly, they are not cheaper than LiFePO4 packs.
After some deliberation, I settled on a 12v 6Ah pack from Amazon, which cost $25USD, versus $80 for the Bioenno. I don’t have a way to test the capacity, so I don’t know how it would actually stack up against the premium battery, but mine works.
As one does, I didn’t even test the battery, I took it apart. Makes sense, right? This battery came in a plastic case, the Bioenno is just shrinkwrapped. Weight of this battery was advertised at 600g, and came in just over 700g.
![](http://www.tobiasfeltus.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/IMG_20230306_112309318-edited-scaled.jpg)
I removed the case, added Powerpoles to its existing leads, replaced a sheet of PCB material with a top and bottom protector made from Ikea polypropylene chopping board, and covered it in shrinkwrap.
![](http://www.tobiasfeltus.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/IMG_20230308_221704512-edited-scaled.jpg)
![](http://www.tobiasfeltus.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/IMG_20230625_214641273_HDR-1-edited-scaled.jpg)
The resulting 616g is not too heavy, and seems to be perfectly able to keep the G90 running at 20w for a good while.
Update: after a couple of SOTA activations I decided to change the form-factor of the battery. I think this fits in a backpack more easily, though it is arguably also more prone to changing position.
![](http://www.tobiasfeltus.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/IMG_20230710_160103841-edited-scaled.jpg)
![](http://www.tobiasfeltus.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/IMG_20230713_141854704-1-edited-scaled.jpg)
I will probably end up getting a Bioenno battery one day, but I don’t need one yet.