RED Brick and Charger Issues

[Peter Johnson]

We are having an issue with our Red Brick Charger and I am looking for the best way to trouble shoot to find out just what is wrong. We have 4 batteries and the charger is essentially telling us that 3 of the 4 are bad. So it may be telling us the truth or it may have a problem. I am trying get a lone for another charger to test with the batteries but so far I have been unlucky.

Also do you guys know of any way to test the batteries themselves, independent of the charger? The batteries may in fact be bad, but without a reliable charger it is hard to tell.

Can you guys help me out with ways to test the batteries and the charger, independent of each other?

Thanks.

 

[ericyoung]

Without another known good charger, it's hard to troubleshoot.

Sometimes one side of the charger will work and not the other - so try all the "bad" batteries on the same side as the one that charged the "good" battery. And try the good battery on the suspected "bad" side. If the "good" battery charges on both sides, chances are the charger is OK.

Sometimes trying a stubborn battery a few times, with maybe a minute between tries, can get them going - can be a issue with older/well used batteries that discharge below the low voltage safety threshold of LiIon batteries. Trying several times may trickle enough charge into them to bring the voltage above the threshold, and get them going again. Generally better to not let the batteries drain completely - I usually try to change them over when down to about 20-30% - so avoiding this potential issue (not unique to Red batteries btw).

Also, did all three go bad at the same time, or gradually they started to die over a period of days or weeks.

 

[Peter Johnson]

Thanks for the helpful advice. It is appearing like one side of the charger is bad. A battery on the "bad" side that won't charge is charging well on the "good" side.

 

[Scott Snare]

One thing to check are the pins on the charger unit. Over time the pins get compressed on the sides and can lose contact with the batteries. The fix is to use a small needle nose vise grip to hold and lock the pin protector open. You can then carefully expand the contacts with a small knife or dental pick to improve contact with the batteries. I use the same technique on the camera battery mount as well for the same reason. Only had one battery go bad over 3 years of heavy use.

 

[ericyoung]

If Scott's good advice doesn't work, you may have to seek Red's help. Red UK offers refurbished Red chargers for a reasonable price if you part exchange your malfunctioning unit - not sure if other Red centres do. It's probably cheaper than paying for a repair, and you get a working unit straight away.

I'm guessing you are new to Red cameras, or you would have found that one Red charger is not able to charge batteries fast enough to keep up with Red One/MX cameras if you're shooting all day. They aren't simultaneous chargers - meaning they only charge one side first, then the other. To keep up, two Red chargers and four (preferably five) batteries are a minimum. Then you can maximise charging speed by keeping the most drained batteries on separate chargers.

 

[Mark Pedersen]

Recommend an IDX 4 battery simultaneous charger instead of the Red chargers. They are great.

M

 

[Russ Fill]

Peter, I had a similar problem with my red brick charger. It was one of the very early chargers and that it had be updated from the time I got it. I had to check with my Red rep to see if it was one of these older chargers and then needed to send it in to be looked at by Red eventually.
They helped me out but it sounds very similar to the issues I had with mine, and I ended up sending it in and having a RED tech take a look to see what the matter was. Red was very nice and did help me out so check with your RED rep to see if yours might just need some love by RED.
Good luck

 

[Ned Wilson]

That happens to our batts periodically. We end up charging them on our shop's dual Frezzi chargers. For whatever reason seems to clean them out and the batteries act like new again. They charge at a lower voltage and charge two at a time simultaneously. Bought them on Amazon for a 183.00 each (they were running a special). We use our Red Chargers on set because even though they charge one at a time, the higher voltage level and using two chargers, turns batteries around faster.