2 red volts enough? swap and charge? run all day?

[Obin Olson]

Hey, i have my Epic and I have no way to power it..did not get side handle or quad yet..so the question is:

if I buy a quad battery holder and use that with my epic with a single red volt, can I charge one red volt while I am running the camera, and then swap all day? In other words does the redvolt charger charge faster then the Epic uses the volt power?

If not would 2 redvolt chargers and 4 batteries be enough?

What are you seeing in redvolt drain time while on Epic and what is the redvolt charge time?

thanks!

 

[Paul Ellington]

Hey, i have my Epic and I have no way to power it..did not get side handle or quad yet..so the question is:

if I buy a quad battery holder and use that with my epic with a single red volt, can I charge one red volt while I am running the camera, and then swap all day? In other words does the redvolt charger charge faster then the Epic uses the volt power?

If not would 2 redvolt chargers and 4 batteries be enough?




What are you seeing in redvolt drain time while on Epic and what is the redvolt charge time?

thanks!

Definitely not.

 

[Mark Phelan]

Well the answer is no, no and no. Oh and about 25 minutes of runtime with a two and a half hour charge per battery. Really need better options like the Redvolt XL batteries and the Quad Charger to make this a viable solution. Otherwise, you'll need about eight to twelve batteries with four chargers to keep you running all day on the current redvolts. Going to have to be patient on this one until something gets approved.

 

[Paul Ellington]

I would highly recommend getting a couple of red bricks. You are only going to get about 20mins max, especially on the Epic. This may change with the next generation volts but for now this is what is available. A lot of people use the volts as a backup to the brick. Let me explain, when the brick fails your camera shuts down, ad a redvolt and the camera switches and keeps running so you can put another brick back on for the cool as ever hot swap factor.

 

[Shawn Nelson]

6 redvolts and 2 chargers would probably be ideal. 4 redvolts in the quad and then 2 charging at all times

 

[David Battistella]

The revolts drain in about 1/2 hour whether you record or not.

They charge in about 2 hours.

For a Roll all day thing

6x redvolts
2x block type brick


At least this much power is needed for what you are hoping to accomplish.

 

[Obin Olson]

thank god i asked. I will now try and find someone with a cable. and quick plate. thanks guys

 

[Julio Quintana]

I have been able to roll all day with 10 Redvolts and 2 travel chargers, but I really have to be on top of the charging or I would probably run out after 8 hours or so. The real life saver would be the Quad Redvolt CHARGER.

 

[Peter Matthes]

The real life saver would be the Quad Redvolt CHARGER.

F@#%, yes!

 

[Shane Kelly]

Hey, i have my Epic and I have no way to power it..did not get side handle or quad yet..so the question is:

if I buy a quad battery holder and use that with my epic with a single red volt, can I charge one red volt while I am running the camera, and then swap all day? In other words does the redvolt charger charge faster then the Epic uses the volt power?

If not would 2 redvolt chargers and 4 batteries be enough?

What are you seeing in redvolt drain time while on Epic and what is the redvolt charge time?

thanks!

not a chance. I'd say 8 redvolts and 4 chargers at least. just get a v-mount plate and 6 batteries and a simultaneous charger and you can run all day.

 

[Demetri Zuev]

I've got 12 Redvolts and hope that they can last for a day with simultaneous recharging in the background.

Though I think I should get more than two travel chargers, it's just that investing in travel chargers doesn't seem logical — when the Quad charger comes out it'll basically render them useless in most scenarios. Well, I guess we don't have much choice at the moment.

P.S.: Sometimes a have these crazy thoughts to expand my Redvolt "collection" to 16 :001_smile:

 

[Mark Toia]

I'm a big RED VOLT user....

8 will get you through the day comfortably.... We 4 travel chargers wired into one plug. (home made quad charger) .. works a treat! !!!
If we stop anywhere near power, on they go... 4 at once.

Just remember this... When your setting up a shot, or just standing around talking crap... turn the camera off.

The only problem with the RED VOLTS is the battery keeps popping out before the little door shuts! Highly annoying.

 

[Elvis B.M.]

"The only problem with the RED VOLTS is the battery keeps popping out before the little door shuts! Highly annoying.[/QUOTE]


The Red tab inside the Side Handle is supposed to lock in the battery, mine does, I haven't had that problem yet, but then again it is made out of plastic i'm sure that its a matter of time... I hate PLASTIC!!!

Anyway... 3 RED Bricks are the way to go for me, I use the 2 Redvolts as back-ups between Bricks.

 

[Mark Whatmore]

I work with the 10 redvolts and 2 travel chargers, shooting all day - and haven't run out of power yet. But overnight charging is not easy, you have to set your alarm for 3hr intervals - bring on the quad charger and I can get some sleep.

 

[Demetri Zuev]

The only problem with the RED VOLTS is the battery keeps popping out before the little door shuts! Highly annoying.

Yes, Mark, that's not normal, you should contact RED support about this.

But overnight charging is not easy, you have to set your alarm for 3hr intervals - bring on the quad charger and I can get some sleep.

I should get myself two more chargers)

 

[Nikolay Spasov]

6 redvolts with 2 travel chargers are not enough, but red brick is charging on the red charger faster than another brick is fully drain on the Epic. Theoretically 2 red bricks with one charger are enough. I have 4 bricks with two chargers and I never had a problem.

in terms of side handle and battery popping ... look at "bulgarian" way to solve the problem .. rock solid !

 

[Phil Holland]

Just another opinion/perspective to add.

Previously I was "mega" focused on using RedVolts and only RedVolts. However, once I got my Scarlet back in December I quickly realized that V-Mount and 1-3 hour operating times were my target. I'm frugal and have set a shortcut key on the my DSMC Side Handle to power off the camera. I've had shoots where I don't even go through one battery, which is nice. I find that when working with a director sometimes that I'm leaving the camera on though and having that extra punch is necessary.

For my style of shooting RedVolts have become somewhat of a "utility tool" for me. I always have one in the DSMC Side Handle, which great for media formating and changing settings. If I run out of power on the brick I can swap over to RedVolt while my AC or myself jogs over with a fresh brick.

RedVolts have been super handy to bring the rig weight down. Nice for steady cam, jib, and hand held work. Certainly nice if you need to run and gun.

Previously I was all about the Quad RedVolt Module, but I'm pretty confident I'll be purchasing another two bricks instead. I currently own 4 RedVolts and those are always with me.

Luckily Red has options to let you power the camera which ever way you want. I just discovered that I'm a brick guy overall with one RedVolt always in the DSMC Side Handle.

A quick on set note, on location I can't imagine swapping out batteries every 30 or so minutes. I just had a 12 hour day and both assistants had plenty to do without me yelling at them for batteries. Went through about 6 hours with of battery power. That would have been 10-12 RedVolt changes if that was purely how we powered the camera. They are quick to pop in, but that's still wasted time in my opinion.

That said, the Quad RedVolt Module solves that headache and gives you over 2 hours of operation and you can constantly be popping RedVolts in at your own convenience.

 

[Demetri Zuev]

Nikolay, what kind of mount is that?

 

[Nikolay Spasov]

BNCR

 

[Marcos Montenegro]

Phil:

When I got my Scarlet-X I was disappointed at the inconvenience of swapping RedVolts every 30 mins for run-n-go shoots; especially when you consider I came from a Nikon D3 background where the battery lasted forever. It surprised me that RED hasn't coded power management in the firmware yet.

Then I saw Red's QUAD module but I thought it's design was way too big and bulky for my purposes, and have seriously considered purchasing a third party AB mount solution since then.

However, I read somewhere here that Jim was working on the Dual RedVolt module, which in theory will provide about a 1 hr shooting time without adding a huge bulk at the back of the camera like the QUAD does now. That would be real nice! Quad or even a dual CHARGER would also be nice.

On another note, I always have a RedVolt in the side handle at all times like you, but I sadly discovered that when you unplug the AC power while the camera is running and while it has a charged RedVolt inside the side handle it does NOT stay ON; I repeated this exercise on multiple times with the same result. This has been covered in more detail on some other threads, but I thought this was a huge let down.

Just another opinion/perspective to add.

Previously I was "mega" focused on using RedVolts and only RedVolts. However, once I got my Scarlet back in December I quickly realized that V-Mount and 1-3 hour operating times were my target. I'm frugal and have set a shortcut key on the my DSMC Side Handle to power off the camera. I've had shoots where I don't even go through one battery, which is nice. I find that when working with a director sometimes that I'm leaving the camera on though and having that extra punch is necessary.

For my style of shooting RedVolts have become somewhat of a "utility tool" for me. I always have one in the DSMC Side Handle, which great for media formating and changing settings. If I run out of power on the brick I can swap over to RedVolt while my AC or myself jogs over with a fresh brick.

RedVolts have been super handy to bring the rig weight down. Nice for steady cam, jib, and hand held work. Certainly nice if you need to run and gun.

Previously I was all about the Quad RedVolt Module, but I'm pretty confident I'll be purchasing another two bricks instead. I currently own 4 RedVolts and those are always with me.

Luckily Red has options to let you power the camera which ever way you want. I just discovered that I'm a brick guy overall with one RedVolt always in the DSMC Side Handle.

A quick on set note, on location I can't imagine swapping out batteries every 30 or so minutes. I just had a 12 hour day and both assistants had plenty to do without me yelling at them for batteries. Went through about 6 hours with of battery power. That would have been 10-12 RedVolt changes if that was purely how we powered the camera. They are quick to pop in, but that's still wasted time in my opinion.

That said, the Quad RedVolt Module solves that headache and gives you over 2 hours of operation and you can constantly be popping RedVolts in at your own convenience.