Old Anton Bauer batteries??

T

TC 3000

Active member
I have a coupe of old Anton Bauer batteries, one of them says logic series pro pac 13 and another pro pac 13. One of them only stays charged for a little while and doesn't charge all the way, the other one use to stay charged but now it won't ...are these things worth repairing or restoring? or are they just dead in the water now and should be thrown away?
 
Boy, it's hard to make a case for NiCd batteries at this point. There was a time where you could pull more cranking amps out of them than other chemistries, but that's long gone.
 
Throw 'em away. The new Anton/Bauers are so much better: Smaller, lighter, faster charging, built-in D-Tap, built-in USB port for powering phones, tablets, etc., a very accurate digital display that shows the actual hours and minutes left at the current load -- which is great for use with dimmable LED lights where the load varies quite a bit.

For times when you may not want to travel with a full-size charger, they even have a little d-tap charger that will fit in your pocket for $50. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...p_charger.html
Batteries have evolved quite a bit in the last 5-7 years.
 
As Charles said. Time to recycle responsibly I think. The cost of re-celling doesn't compute with the cost of current Lithium technology.

Chris Young
 
Doug Jensen said:
Throw 'em away. The new Anton/Bauers are so much better: Smaller, lighter, faster charging, built-in D-Tap, built-in USB port for powering phones, tablets, etc., a very accurate digital display that shows the actual hours and minutes left at the current load -- which is great for use with dimmable LED lights where the load varies quite a bit.

For times when you may not want to travel with a full-size charger, they even have a little d-tap charger that will fit in your pocket for $50. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...p_charger.html
Batteries have evolved quite a bit in the last 5-7 years.
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Are the chargers still compatible with the newer batteries?
 
Anton Bauer also occasionally has trade-in programs where you can get rid of old batteries in exchange for a discount on new ones. If I'm remembering correctly, you could even trade in batteries from other manufacturers. This also applied to chargers. I took advantage a few times when they'd post on Steadicamforum.com

Paul Dudeck was involved with this program, as was Hannah Vollenweider. I'm unsure if it's still running or if these e-mail addresses still work after the Vitec Group rebranding, but you could give it a shot.

paul.dudeck@vitecgroup.com
hannah.vollenweider@vitecgroup.com
 
FWIW--I was a long--I mean, like AHEM decades long--Anton Bauer user and owner. After a series of what I would consider design mis-steps I moved over to CORE and have been very pleased with everything so far. I don't feel as bad removing my business since they are part of the corporate behemoth that begins with a V (that no-one can pronounce now).
 
CharlesPapert said:
FWIW--I was a long--I mean, like AHEM decades long--Anton Bauer user and owner. After a series of what I would consider design mis-steps I moved over to CORE and have been very pleased with everything so far. I don't feel as bad removing my business since they are part of the corporate behemoth that begins with a V (that no-one can pronounce now).
Click to expand...

Same here. About three years ago I switched to Core SWX to replace my AB Digital 150 batteries. No regrets. My Core batteries work with my AB charger. By the way, Vitec has changed its name to Videndum as part of rebrand.
 
Speaking of name changes, Core SWX used to be called Switronix.

They changed it like 5-6 years ago, I live 15 minutes away from their HQ here on LI.
 
NorBro said:
Speaking of name changes, Core SWX used to be called Switronix.

They changed it like 5-6 years ago, I live 15 minutes away from their HQ here on LI.
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And I live about an hours drive from Vitec/Videndum USA HQ in Shelton, CT. I’ve been to the Shelton facility three times over the years. Unfortunately my last visit about a year and a half ago was not positive. I dropped off a Sachtler tripod and video head to get a repair estimate. I felt the quoted repair cost was excessive and the video head was returned to me in worse shape than when I dropped it off.
 
nutmegger said:
By the way, Vitec has changed its name to Videndum as part of rebrand.
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yes well, that was what I was alluding to. It's a bit of a baffling rebrand, a longer and harder name to pronounce. I'm sure they had their reasons but it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue in comparison.
 
Vitec/Videndum is a long-time supporter and biggest sponsor of Maine Media Workshops and a representative was on campus this past week while was teaching a course. I made it a point to (good naturedly) mispronounce their dumb new name every tIme I saw him. BTW, he doesn't like the name any more than we do.

Still love their products though.
 
Videndum is not a great name, especially compared to Vitec, which actually sounded cool, or was at least a good fit for the company.

Also, apparently rebrands are now called brand evolutions ("rebrand" needed a rebrand!?).
 
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