Battery issues

[David Evans]

hey guys,

My Swit V-mount battery is having a problem and I can't figure out if it's easy to solve or if it's broken. At first I feared something might be wrong with my Ursa Mini, but I connected the camera directly to the current and it turned on. So the problem is the battery which, for some reason, when I press the Led indicator, it blinks a green light at 50% (which it never did). It usually just lights up orange leds to indicate how much power it has. I've plugged it into the charger but nothing happens. Any ideas?

Thanks

 

[Run&Gun]

Do the batteries have a sleep/hibernate or ship mode?

Unfortunately, today's batteries have micro computers in them and it's possible for "something to go wrong" and end up with a bricked battery(no pun intended). I had a set of Core batteries about 4-5 years ago that had a glitch in the firmware and they would semi-randomly reset when powering equipment(meaning they cut power to whatever they were on) instead of when they were on a charger. That doesn't really help you, but just illustrating that batteries are not just simple dumb blocks of power anymore.

 

[cyvideo]

it blinks a green light at 50% (which it never did). It usually just lights up orange leds to indicate how much power it has.

For some Lithium cells when the onboard analyzer triggers a blinking GREEN it means the charger is "balancing" the cells. If this cycle keeps repeating itself it is usually the case that one or more cells cannot be balanced and could be defective as it will NOT reach 4.2 V in which case the charger will keep on trying to balance. If one of the cells has gone below 3.1 volts it might be unrecoverable. Over the years I've had this with a few V Mount batteries. Check around some of the broadcast rental stores or even your local TV networks to see if any of them have a CADEX tester, analyzer, rejuvenator. Those things are amazing and if a battery is salvageable a CADEX unit can often bring batteries back from the dead almost. Worth paying a few $$$s for a health check. If all else fails Look around for a re-cell service for V Mounts. Can save you some $$$s over new and often you can have higher capacity later model cells fitted as replacements.

Chris Young

https://www.cadex.com/en/products/c8000-battery-testing-system

http://broadcastingbattery.com/camcorder/index.phtml?index=1

 

[David Evans]

Thanks guys. From the manual, these green led lights apparently are an indicator that the battery is in discharge mode. But it's been like this for 24h. I'll try to take it to a rental house I know.

Thanks!

 

[Greg_E]

In general, these can not be re-celled. They need to be sealed to retain their aviation certification so some companies will not service them.

 

[Run&Gun]

In general, these can not be re-celled. They need to be sealed to retain their aviation certification so some companies will not service them.

It's been a long time since I've seen camera batt's re-celled. I have never had a battery re-celled. When they hit the end of their service life, I bought new ones with warranties that usually(used to) covered them for three years.

Looking at the re-cell company website, most of those batteries look like very old models.

 

[Greg_E]

The flight certificate for lithium stuff pretty much ends re-cell. And the cist now is really the batteries, not the plastic. Just more throwaway culture I'm afraid.

I have a stack of old V mount and NP1 that I need to recycle sitting at work.

 

[Run&Gun]

The flight certificate for lithium stuff pretty much ends re-cell. And the cist now is really the batteries, not the plastic. Just more throwaway culture I'm afraid.

I have a stack of old V mount and NP1 that I need to recycle sitting at work.

I have most of my old, dead Anton Bauer bricks on a shelf in my storage building. The bottom most shelf. And the shelf is warped... I don’t know what was worse, when my girlfriend and I built a hand-laid brick patio or moving and stacking all of those dead batteries...

 

[puredrifting]

I have most of my old, dead Anton Bauer bricks on a shelf in my storage building. The bottom most shelf. And the shelf is warped... I don’t know what was worse, when my girlfriend and I built a hand-laid brick patio or moving and stacking all of those dead batteries...

You could have perhaps used dead batteries AS the bricks for your hand laid patio? Funny that we used to call the big AB batteries bricks too!