Spark have a battery
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Does Spark have a battery so that you can take it outside and use as a bluetooth speaker?
Or does it have to be plugged in the whole time?
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@zamboknee The Spark does not have have its own battery. However many of us have bought external battery packs with adapters which fit into the AC adapter socket on the amp so we do have truly portable Spark amps. There are several specs to be sure of when looking into an external battery pack:
- it must provide 19 volts
- it must provide at least 2.4amps (it can provide a higher level of amps without harming the Spark since it will only draw the number of amps it needs)
- the connector to the amp must be center-positive
- the connector to the amp should be 5.5mmx2.5mm in size
- be careful of the mAh rating -- 1000mAh = 1 hour of 1 amp of power. To use the Spark40 amp for 1 solid hour at maximum power draw you would need at least 2400mAh. Most battery packs offer far more power than that. The PowerAdd battery pack I bought has 35000mAh -- when I first got my Spark40 amp I kept it on for over 11 hours and the battery pack still had 65% of its capacity left after that. I used the amp for 9 hours as bluetooth playback device and 2 hours as a guitar amp and bluetooth playback combined. Any rating of 10,000mAh or greater should provide power for a lot of playing, but the larger that number the longer time you'll be able to use the amp without plugging it in to a power outlet.
Some people have used velcro strips so that the battery pack attaches securely to the back of the Spark40 amp.
The battery pack I purchased through Amazon in the USA is no longer available, but if you look online for your country you will probably be able to find things that would work.
Other people have bought different sorts of power supplies which are larger/heavier and have AC outlets so they can plug their Spark40 power adapter into them. These make it slightly less portable since there's heavier gear to carry aroung.
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Something every car owner should have anyway... Might also power a spark?
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@dhbailey What exact PowerAdd battery pack did you purchase?
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@kekotorres56 The 35000mAh model. I'm not sure it's marketed any more, but there are others out there. Just make sure the specs are correct. The larger the mAh rating the longer you'll be able to use the Spark on that battery pack. When I got my Spark I used it on the PowerAdd battery for over 10 hours and it had only used 35% of the battery's capacity. Much longer than I would ever need in a typical usage situation.
