V-Mount batteries are fantastic. When you need a lot of power to last all day, or supply multiple devices, there aren’t many good alternatives. But, they get really heavy, especially if you have multiples. They’re also relatively large. British broadcast equipment manufacturer, Hawk Woods has come up with a solution. Mini V-Lok batteries. The Mini V-Lok are about half the size of a traditional V mount battery, but they’re about half the size, and half the weight. They’ll fit right into a standard V mount on a camera or other device. And you can even get a standard sized adapter plate to hold two of them, giving you complete hot swappable non-stop power.
Standard sized V mount batteries typically hold about 70-190 Watt hours of power. A pretty substantial amount. The new Mini V-Lok batteries come in 100 and 150 Watt hour flavours. Being able to keep up with the much larger batteries in a package half the size is extremely impressive. Battery technology has come a long way, though, since the original V mount battery design. They will fit into a standard V mount on your camera, light or other device. But one particularly cool feature is the ability to make the batteries hot swappable. A double adapter plate allows you to connect a pair of the smaller Mini V-Lok into a full sized battery slot.
As one battery gets low in power, it’s simply a case of take it off, let the other battery take over supplying power, then slot a fresh one into the empty slot. When the second battery gets low, swap that one out the same way. As long as you’ve got a supply of fully charged batteries available, you can go on shooting forever without a break. Even if you don’t need to hot swap, a pair of these means you get 200-300 Watt hours of power on the back of your camear in a similar sized package. That’s already more than single regular sized V mount batteries. The prices will be around £245 for the 100Wh version, around £365 for the 150Wh version, and about £235 for the double adapter plate. This sounds pricey, but when you consider the full size 140Wh Hawk Woods V-Lok battery goes for around £359, it’s not too bad. And you do save all that extra weight and space. You can find out more on the Hawk Woods website.
