Mixer bag reccommendation please
 

I'll be purchasing an SD 302 with an eye toward a 7-series recorder in the future. Will the Petrol Eargonizer PEGZ-1 accommodate both devices with your assorted 'phones, wireless boxes etc?

I'll throw in two other questions for the price of one:

1) What length breakaway, 15 ft or 25 ft? There a whooping $20 difference; is there any engineering reason not to go longer?

2) Rechargeable or single use batteries for the Senn wireless, and SD units? Disposables are working fine but would like to be eco-friendly if possible.

Thanks.
Bob

The Petrol bags are great.

I have the smaller one for my SD 302.

For one shoot, I put the 744t in the same bag. I do not recommend this as it was very tight, but it did work.

I recommend the larger one if you are going to incude both units on a routine basis.

Petrol also has a shoulder harness which works with either bag.

I like the extra length for the breakaway, but that is personal preference. The reason one might want to go with a shorter cable is that it would be lighter. For me, I would want the extra length. Say the camera is mounted 5' off the ground, and your mixer is 4' off the ground, you lose that 9' if your cable is lying on the ground. This leaves you with having to be within 6' (with a 15' breakaway cable) of the camera (unless you have the cable "flying".)

You did not mention a brand name of the breakaway cable. For some, you can get an extension cable.

When rechargeable batteries meant using NiCd, the choice was simple, do not use rechargeable. However, the NiMH batteries have changed that.

I have found the Energizer NiMH batteries to work fine. I charge them the day before the shoot.

They work fine in the SD 302 and the Sennheiser G2 wireless.

I am overly cautious, so during an all day shoot I change them during lunch. It probably isn't necessary.

My chargers are the 7 hour type, so I have four chargers.

For around $100 you can have four chargers, 32 AA batteries and 16 AAA batteries. And you can recharge 16 batteries at a time.

For more money, Energizer has a better charger which happens to be a 15 minute charger. The standard 7 hour type has a timer and it just shuts off the charger after about 7 1/2 hours. The better charger is more sophisticated in that it detects the end of charge condition and monitors the temperature of the batteries.

You will love the Sound Devices 302! Once you own one, you will want to purchase the 744t or other 7-series recorder.

That's the bag I have. It looks like it would work for both units...but, you need to check the listed measurements for the units. I'm not sure that it would work w/ the 442...but, the 302 and the 702 should be fine.

You can easily clip on 4 wireless receivers on the outside of the bag w/ the clip on pouches.

Also, get the Petrol harness...that bag gets heavy after a while. The harness also has a couple of clip on pouches for wireless or batteries.

I went with the 25' and always send line level. It's a good value when you need that extra 10 feet.

Thanks. Are you guys storing your wireless boxes in the pouch or just clipping them on during production?

Yes, the Energizers or Duracells were the ones I was considering.

The cables I was given quotes for are made by PSC.

I put the wireless receivers in the clip-on pouches made for that purpose.

When I have more than two, then I put them in a pouch that is part of the bag itself. Either way it works nicely.

I say skip the rechargeable AA's in everything except transmitters. for transmitters that take 9V's there are lithium ion recharagebles now and you can get them from trew audio. as for the rest of the bag, get a master battery system. I had a 12 cell AA 14.4V Nicad pak made for $35 which runs the entire bag - mixer, 2 receivers, LED bag light.

I wired coax (barrel) power connectors up for all the gear to a plastic box with a master switch. The power box has a XLR4 for power input. power from the battery with a inline fuse is fed to the box input via standard XLR4. Why the XLR4's ? two reasons. One I can power the bag from a standard 12V camera supply using a XLR4, and two, my charger setup. charging is as simple as disconnecting the ONE battery from the power box and plugging it into my PAG charger via a XLR to Coax wire. The PAG charger uses Coax connectors for external charging. battery pac charges in 30 minutes, runs my setup with everything on for 4-5 hrs. If I don't use both the wireless it will run 8-10hrs. I plan to upgrade to a NiMH 5/4 AA cell pak ( maybe $60) which should give me everything on all day. even still, a 15 minute charge during a break will get me going so I don't really worry about it. I've never run out of juice.

all the bits might of cost me about $20 since I had some of the stuff laying around and one evening. even if I had to buy everything, I'd of spent maybe $35-$40 for all the parts. you could of course also spend a lot more to get a NP1 battery system, but this semi-DIY setup works really well for me.

The big upside over using AA's is that everything stays put in the bag. I don't have to remove everything to put the batts, charge them, then put it all back together again. Back in June I did a 10day straight shoot with this setup and it ran great. having to take it apart everyday for battery access would of been a serious pain.

BTW, the external clip on pouches on the Petrol bags are for transmitters. on the main compartment inside divider there are 3 or 4 elastic loops to hold the receivers. they fit lectro receivers perfectly. if the receivers slip down a bit, some hook velcro on the receiver will stop it from sliding down. the front most compartment also has elastic setup to hold either receivers if you have a recorder in the main compartment. the petrol bags are highly configurable to whatever you have.
If you have any skills with a soldering iron using a single battery pak like I have is very economical.

Get the 25'. Between giving the camera some lag and the mixer some lag, you're losing a few feet anyway.