Any vmount charger work with any vmount battery?

[Roger Alexander]

I had my sights set on getting the 95wh GMP batteries as I feel like they are the best bang for buck at $200. But I was bummed to find out they won't actually fit on the V-lock expander for raven. So now I'm back to searching for new bang-for-buck batteries that will fit the 100.6mm width limit of the v-lock expander. With a battery I also have to get a battery charger and I have noticed other brands have jacked the price on their chargers WAY up. So my question is, if I get a different brand of battery, I assume I can still buy the cheaper GMP charger and use it to charge the batteries of a different brand as long as it's a Vmount?

 

[Roger Alexander]

Additionally, I know the general rule of thumb about being weary of "cheap chinese" products. I don't think I'd take the risk in getting one of those off-brand batteries because I assume the battery wouldn't last long. However, what about a Chinese charger? If the charger is just moving electricity from the outlet to the battery, is there any risk involved with getting one of those? What are the possibilities of something going wrong with a charger? These are two I have been looking at.

2mount: http://www.ebay.com/itm/BC-C2S-V-Mo...809559?hash=item4d3487fe97:g:-aQAAOSwgQ9VkRaA

4mount: http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Four-Ch...236024?hash=item27e1a25238:g:CF0AAOxy7nNTPVF1

Does anybody have any experience with a chinese charger? Any difference in functionality or life expectancy?

 

[Marcus Friedlander]

I don't have experience with Chinese batteries or chargers but a little word of warning before you continue your research.

If you put a cheap knock off battery on your camera (well, technically any battery except a RedBrick or Redvolt/Redvolt Xl) and it ends up frying something in your camera (or even worse, the camera itself) your warranty WILL NOT cover the damage and you will have to pay out of pocket to fix your camera.

I'm not saying to necessarily avoid your Chinese batteries, but I would do a significant amount of research on them before you slapped them onto your camera.

As a general rule of thumb, I would suggest NOT purchasing the cheapest option you can find for this exact reason. No point in saving yourself $100 per battery if it means you need to pay another $6,000 for a new camera body.

 

[ericyoung]

It's impossible to generalise. LiIon batteries (even more than other rechargeable batteries) need very careful charge monitoring to avoid the danger of overheating and fire/explosion. Ideally every lithium chemistry battery should only be charged using the chargers from the specific battery manufacturer as most have proprietary circuitry which may not be compatible with chargers from other makers.

Best case scenario is that they work fine together, but personally I never want to risk fire/explosion, especially as you'll probably want to leave these charging overnight while you're sleeping at some point!

 

[Carlo De Agostini]

I've been using the GMP batteries (both for red and regular ones) both on my old scarlet dragon and the new scarlet-w with vlock expander and they are just great.

To make them fit in the vlock expander though I had to gently slim down the right edge with very fine sand paper. It takes 5 min and the result is perfect.