 Hey everyone, this is Nico Carver. My website is at nebulaphotos.com and today I will be reviewing the Pegasus Astro Pocket Power Box. As I said in my cable management video, which I suggest you watch first, I got this device when my previous dew heater controller broke just one day. It just didn't work anymore and I was shopping for a new dew heater controller and realized I really only needed two channels, one for my guide scope and one for my imaging scope. And so I was looking for different dew heater controllers. I came across the pocket power box somehow and it just had two channels but then it had all this extra stuff built in. It had a environmental sensor, it had a DSLR power output, it had four 12 volt power outputs. So if you're not understanding why all those things are exciting, we're gonna go ahead and do all of that in this video. But it really, even though I was just shopping for this simple thing, I spent a little bit more and got so much more. I love this device. I have it on two setups now. One for my lens based setups and one for my main telescope setup. Okay, the first thing I want to talk about is it comes with this. This is an environmental sensor. It senses or it measures both the air temperature and the relative humidity. And by knowing the air temperature and the relative humidity, you can get the dew point. That's important because comparing the dew point to the air temperature, you can know when dew is going to form. And so if there's no risk of dew forming, it can really turn down the power that it's sending to those dew heater bands substantially. If there is more of a risk of heavy dew, then it increases the power, the heat. And so what this does in effect is it saves you your battery. And even if you have a huge battery, it's always better to put less strain on the battery. So I like this feature. It's also just fun in their software. They have a little client and you can just graph and watch the temperature and the dew point move over the night. Oh, and I'll just say that my previous dew heater controller didn't have this. And so each night I'd have to sort of guess what to set it at, which is sort of annoying. With this now, I just put it on auto-dew. You set that up in the software the first time. And as soon as you set it up on auto-dew, then every time you start up the pocket power box again, it remembers that setting. So I don't even have to open the software. I could literally just turn on the pocket power box and it would start using this environmental sensor to automatically control the dew heater bands. So while I got this for dew control, the power management features of this device have turned out to be even more important to me because like I said in the cable management video, this is what just got me to actually take care of my mess of cables coming off my mound and get them all on top of the scope. And it's really only through the pocket power box that I was able to do that. I will get into other devices that would allow you to do that at the end of the video. But for me, it was the pocket power box that made me finally manage my cables. Another thing other than cable management that moving to this device meant is that I wasn't being wildly inefficient anymore. If I brought out my big battery, what I was doing was I was taking that big battery running a power inverter. So I'm going from DC to AC, direct current to alternating current. Then I was out of the power inverter. I was running all of these power adapters to go from AC back to DC to power all my different devices. So one, this is just a ton of stuff to bring out under the field. Each one of those power adapters weighs a couple pounds. The inverter where you weighed 10 pounds and it's just other than the weight, it's just a bunch of stuff to carry out. With this, the device is literally taking care of what the inverter and all of those power adapters used to do. And it's all on my scope now. So you can just imagine how I just wasn't really thinking before that, wow, this is going to replace so many things that I have to bring out there and worry about and might break. So it's just been great in that sense. The last really neat thing that I want to talk about that I've actually, I didn't, I got, when I got this device, I was just using it with my ZWO camera. So I wasn't using this feature, but it's the DSLR 8 volt power output. Now I have bought the Nikon and Canon couplers from Pegasus. And so I can now use this with Canon and Nikon cameras. And it's just really nice to not have to worry with your DSLR about changing out the internal battery. You just never know when it's going to run out. I find that those indicators aren't that accurate. And so just to run power off of the power box has been great, too, because I can just run a DSLR all night, leave it, forget about it. If you have automated focusing, then you can really forget about it. And I'll just mention that Pegasus Astro makes these power couplers. They just basically fit into the battery compartment and then run a wire out. They make them for most Canon models, most Nikon models, some Sony models and some Fuji models. So if you have any of those cameras, check out Pegasus Astro's website or one of the resellers and you can look for those. So I've gone through a bunch of the features that I really like about this product. And I want to make this a fair review and actually go through some of the drawbacks or things that I didn't like. And I'll be upfront that I don't think that these drawbacks are necessarily Pegasus Astro's fault. They're just something that I wasn't expecting with the product or sort of gotchas that I think people should be aware of. The first is that when I bought the product, it really emphasized online that it came with all the different cables that you need to run it. So in addition to coming with this environmental sensor, it came with a USB cable. So this is to you need to run this to your computer somehow so that the software works after you set it up the first time. If you wanted to get rid of this and not use it anymore, you could. But I like actually running the software, just connecting, making sure that I can see that it's working. And the other nice thing about running the software through the USB cable is then you can send commands to the power box through your computer if you want to. So why would you ever want to do that? Well, they you can actually turn off and on the different 12 volt volt power outputs one by one or all at the same time. You can turn off and on the DSLR. So this is just cool. It's like you can reset a device in the field without actually having to get out there and unplug and plug back in. So I've used that a couple of times. It's also just nice to see that it's working. So I recommend using a USB cable. I'm getting to what I didn't like about them supplying all the cables. Sorry, it's a little bit long winded here. The thing that I didn't like about them supplying all of the power cables and the USB cable is that I am guessing most people who use the power box want to put everything onto the scope or onto the mount and they really don't need cables this long. This one's even longer to do that. They want shorter cables. So basically I got this device and I'm not using any of the cables that came with it, which just feels sort of wasteful. I'm going to keep them all in the box here just in case I ever resell or need them for some reason. But I bought all shorter cables that made more sense with how I was setting it up. So I don't fault them for supplying the cables and it makes sense that they're making them longer because with a longer cable, you can at least connect. If it was too short, you're never going to be able to do anything with it. So I understand the choice, but I didn't end up using any of the cables that the device came with. I just use the power box and the environmental sensor and right. I replaced all the other cables. OK, the other thing about cables that I didn't get when I bought this is I looked at my devices and I measured just quickly with a ruler. I measured the diameter of the ports of my different devices and the power ports and they all seemed like they would work with the cables that came with it or cables that I was going to buy that are shorter. They're called 2.1 millimeter ports. What I didn't realize is that the diameter of the pin inside that port can vary. And so different devices I have don't actually work with this cable or the new cables that I bought based on this. And so after the fact, I finally was putting everything together and it just like wouldn't fit. And I was like, what's happening? So I looked it up and realized that, yeah, the center pin can be a different diameter, too. The good thing is there are adapters you can buy. So instead of having to buy a whole new cable, you can just buy a little adapter that goes on top of this. And so that's what I did. OK, the last drawback for some is that this is a $200 accessory. And if you buy some of the extras like the AC adapter, if you want to run the whole thing off AC power, that's another 65. If you want to buy one of the couplers for your DSLR, that's another 20. So it's not cheap. But a lot of things in deep sky astrophotography aren't cheap. I think it's fully worth that price. But the other thing I found is that I've shown this to people and it's sort of like when you're looking at it, it's just like, well, this is just a little plastic box with some power inputs. Why why is this $200 because it doesn't seem doesn't seem like substantial, but they made it lightweight for a reason because they knew that it was going to go on top of people's scopes. And really, I feel like what you're paying for is the design, which takes a lot of time and the software, which has worked flawlessly. So I don't feel that the price is unjustified. But for some, that would be a drawback. The only way that I have seen to do power management cheaper than this, like, you know, proper power management is to homebrew your own solution. And probably the cheapest way to do it is to buy a power distribution block from like a Chinese company. I'll show one right here and put the link in my description if you're interested in this idea. And then you can buy what are called Anderson power poles. And they're just these little connectors that work with this distribution block. And what you would do is you would find you round up all your cables and cut off the ends and put on crimp on the Anderson power poles and then run it directly like that. I was thinking about doing this. I didn't want to wreck all my cables. When I when I looked into buying new cables and the power distribution block and all the other little things you have to do get with this, I realized that it was going to run me about as much as the packet power box. You might find that you can do it for cheaper. I know that people who do a lot of DIY projects often can can do things cheaper because they know where to find things or they buy things used. So I'm not saying it's impossible to go cheaper than 200 with the Anderson power pole idea. But the other thing that didn't really appeal to me about it is that, for instance, with my lens set up, I'm trying to think keep things pretty lightweight. And that that distribution block, I think was heavier. It just seemed like they'd really thought through how to make the Pegasus Astro as useful as possible by while still keeping it lightweight. OK, other alternatives. Most of these are more expensive than the Pegasus option. But I just want to go through them real quick. There is the do buster. This is a classic device. It's US made. I've seen a lot of people use it and be really happy with it, has a nice warranty. It provides lots of do options. So if you have a complicated set up like with like you want something for your secondary mirror and your primary mirror and you want a bunch of different do heater bands, this might be a better product for you. It only I think in the classic design provides two 12 volt power outputs while the pocket power box offers four. But I've just heard good things about it. I've heard it's really well made. So you could also look at the do buster. I think it starts at two hundred and fifty dollars. There's also the ultimate power box from Pegasus Astro. I would consider this, but it's a pretty substantial increase in price. And most of the features I didn't need right now. It might be nice to put all the USB ports into one device rather than having my separate USB hub. But honestly, the separate USB hub has been working great for me. I have had no problems with just this simple anchor seven port USB three hub. It is powered by the pocket power box, which I think you always for this kind of for astrophotography, I'd always look at a powered hub. And lastly, and this is just going to replace tons of things for you. If you go this route, including the laptop, the computer is the eagle from Prima Luce Lab. This thing does all the things that the power box does. Plus it is a high performing wind 10 computer and all kinds of bells and whistles. So if you're interested in just something that's like really turnkey and has all kinds of features, you might go in that direction. But to wrap up for me, this is the perfect device. It's very flexible. I can move it from setup to setup. But I found that now that I wanted to run two setups at times that I did want to. So I bought two of these and it really just does everything that I wanted to do and nothing more. If you have a setup that's a little bit more complex or you are making something more permanent like an observatory, you might want one of these higher end products. But for me, this is perfect. I just set it and forget it. It's really just become so easy to use that I really don't even think about it. It just manages my power, it manages the do. It has cleaned up my cables and now I can just get out there, put my scope on the mount, plug in a couple things and start imaging. So to wrap up, this review was not sponsored. I bought my two Pegasus Astro Pocket Power Boxes with my own money and I just really like the product. So I wanted to review it. If you have any ideas for future reviews that you really want me to do sooner than later, you can let me know in the comments. And thank you so much for watching my channel. If you're not subscribed, please subscribe. If you really are enjoying these videos, feel free to check out my Patreon and you can support me on there as well. All right, thanks everyone. Clear skies.