Lenmar Speed Chargers ???

MrBirdBoy

MrBirdBoy

Well-known member
Hi All,
I'm a bit Puzzled & pissed. I have 2 Speed chargers & 5 for the DVXuser 3500 batteries. The cells last for 45 min to an hour each! Mosty stand-by time. They are maybe 15 months old. They have always been charged with the Speed charger & I'm wondering if you guys have the same problem ? I read somewhere on the site that the batts have a life cycle of 500 charges. Well I have 5 of them plus the little one from Panny and 230 hours on my heads. What gives? I am ALWAYS changing batteries. I just shot Bob Lutz today & had to change 3 times. Bad news. Everybody wait while I rebat & pickup time code again.

Any ideas ? Do I need to cycle these somehow ? Or buy real Panny batts ? $$$$$$$

Thanks in Advance & sorry for the bad vibe,

Steve
 
I don't know. I've got one of the Lenmar speed chargers, one CGR-D54, two of the old Power2000 3600-mah batteries, and the small Panasonic. I almost exclusively use the Lenmar to charge with. Even though my batteries are all around 2 years old, I still get over 5 hours out of the D54, and a good two hours out of the Power2000's. I rarely use the Panasonic, but we did this last weekend and it still delivered about an hour.

I know that's no help at all, but I guess all I'm saying is, I don't think the Lenmar should be at fault, at least not as a general design. It seems to work and do what it says. And none of the batteries should be suffering from a "memory effect", although it probably wouldn't hurt to run 'em all the way to the ground and then charge 'em up all the way, then run 'em into the ground again, just to "exercise" them.
 
I have the exact same problem as Steve and it occured under nearly identical conditions. I've noticed that when I put exhausted cells on the Lenmar, it indicates that they are still at least half charged.
 
I have those same chargers and I just got a pair of the new 5600 DVXuser bats and I'm having short life in mine too.

I have 4 of the Panny 2.8 bats and I'm getting about the same time out of all the batteries?

I figured it may just take a few cycles to get 'em up to par.

Previously I've been really happy with all this stuff and I'm not worried about it yet... but it is ironic that you brought it up now. I was on a shoot on Tue and I had 1 of the 5600 bats and 4 of the 2.8 Panny bats and I figured I had ZERO to worry about with power so I left my chargers and wall adapter at home... by the end of the day I was sweating it pretty bad. I didn't want to indicate it to anybody but I'd been blazing through all the batteries at the same rate when I expected the 5600 to get me at least a third of the way through... by the second bat I was using the LCD for quick framing and then watching audio levels in the eyepiece. I figured how would I explain it if I ran out of juice on our only cam?

I've used the Lenmar chargers exclusively since I got my DVX and so far one of my 2.8 bats bit the dust also... few months ago.
 
I would guess that it is less likely to be the charger problem, than the batteries. We tested the Lenmar charger here, it puts in about 1.6A into the pack under charge vs 1.2A used by the Panasonic charger. It is OK, as LI-Ion cell makers recommend to use 0.5C charge rate (up to 1C). In your case 0.5C would be .5x3500=1750ma (1.75A); so the charger does not send too much current into it, does not damage the pack. If you still have a Panasonic charger,
try to charge the pack on it, and then run your camera down in play mode. If it runs for only short time, you know it is the battery at fault. You can also send us your pack, we will test it on our new charger/tester http://dolgin.net and return to you with a report.
HTH
Alex Dolgin
 
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