Best practices for Red batteries?

[Shawn Nelson]

Alright, I'm hearing differing strong opinions.

For the Red batteries, what is 'best practice' if you want the longest possible good life from your batteries?

1. Use until camera kicks off (i.e. full drain) and then recharge, or only use to a point (say, 10, 15 or 20% left) and then stop?

2. Store empty or store full?

Thanks!

 

[Cail Young]

For lithium in general:

Use down to around 20-15%. Store around half full.

 

[Shawn Nelson]

Using down to about 15-20% was my guess, though a skilled DP argued that he'd heard it was best to fully drain li-ion.

Why store half full? I thought I'd read best to store full and top off every so often.

 

[Cail Young]

Using down to about 15-20% was my guess, though a skilled DP argued that he'd heard it was best to fully drain li-ion.

Great way to destroy your lithium batteries - they start to overheat as they get fully drained. Fully draining batteries is a holdover from the NiCad and NiMH days, and is not necessary any more.

Why store half full? I thought I'd read best to store full and top off every so often.

Depends what you mean by "store". If you mean in the 2 days between shoots, then you should definitely just keep them full. If you're putting them in a box to not be used for 30 days, then leave them half full as the chemistry "prefers" it to being held full for a long time.

 

[Jordi Figueras]

Just my 2 cents in experience with the Red Bricks:

Whenever we haven't let them drain in camera, after fully charging them the first readout you have in camera (in the percentage of power) never shows 99%, which I think it's what it must be. Otherwise, when letting them drain and recharging them, it always shows 99%...

I don't know about chemistry, but we always work that way since we were getting readouts of about 87% when putting a fully recharged battery in the camera. At the end of the day it almost meant we needed one more battery to finish the day.

About storage, I read somewhere in this forum the best practice was to store them charged to 80% (aprox.) for long term storage.

Hope this helps!

Cheers!

 

[Cail Young]

after fully charging them the first readout you have in camera (in the percentage of power) never shows 99%

Are you charging with the RED charger?

 

[Jordi Figueras]

Hey, Cail. Yes I always use the Red chargers. That's what surprised me the first time, when we didn't let the batteries run dry the power display 87% aprox., after full recharge. Then, one battery that drain while in camera, after recharging, it showed 99%. We tried the same with all the batteries and all now always display 99% after recharging.

I don't know if that makes sense, but for us works this way. By the way, we have 6 Red Bricks.

Cheers!

 

[dino g]

after close to a thousand days shooting with this camera and using my batteries over and over again, i have a very strong opinion about the proper use of these batteries and the charger.

it take 60 minutes to discharge to 40%, it takes 60 minutes to charge to 100% from 40%. that is a one to one correlation.

for each 5% more that gets discharged, there is a penalty of 5 minutes for charging so, 35% to 100% = 70 minutes, 30% = 80 minutes, 25% = 90 minutes...

now here is the important part, at 32% the battery is so hot that you now have to wait 10 minutes, or more depending on the ambient temperature to cool the battery down enough for it to accept a charge. as this percentage goes down the number of minutes you have to wait goes up, again the exact amount will depend on where you are shooting and where you are charging your batteries.

again, i change my batteries between 50 and 40% on the status window, which also coincides with setup changes 7 out of 10 times, so i also change the drive at that same time.

you may have experienced different results but i have had a consistent experience doing it this way for over 3 years working many days per week every week since sept. 07, 2007.

as far as storage. i work pretty much everyday so i always try and leave a set/stage/location with my batteries fully charged, which does not mean 5 bars (that is 80 to 100%), it means the charger is at a steady green...there is a huge difference and unfortunately some AC's egos can't comprehend this simple fact.

good luck....go ducks go.

dino

 

[Ivan Kovax]

Alright, I'm hearing differing strong opinions.

For the Red batteries, what is 'best practice' if you want the longest possible good life from your batteries?

1. Use until camera kicks off (i.e. full drain) and then recharge, or only use to a point (say, 10, 15 or 20% left) and then stop?

2. Store empty or store full?

Thanks!

Shawn,

1. I do exactly as you.

2. I make it a habit to store full simply for practical reasons - when you are getting up at 5am to head to a shoot in the middle of nowhere you don't want to be caught with having forgotten to charge batteries. Streamlined practices always work the best.

I was exhausted recently and let slip from my battery charging rule - needless to say it wasn't the best of occasions

 

[Steve Freebairn]

This post should be made a sticky. So true!

after close to a thousand days shooting with this camera and using my batteries over and over again, i have a very strong opinion about the proper use of these batteries and the charger.

it take 60 minutes to discharge to 40%, it takes 60 minutes to charge to 100% from 40%. that is a one to one correlation.

for each 5% more that gets discharged, there is a penalty of 5 minutes for charging so, 35% to 100% = 70 minutes, 30% = 80 minutes, 25% = 90 minutes...

now here is the important part, at 32% the battery is so hot that you now have to wait 10 minutes, or more depending on the ambient temperature to cool the battery down enough for it to accept a charge. as this percentage goes down the number of minutes you have to wait goes up, again the exact amount will depend on where you are shooting and where you are charging your batteries.

again, i change my batteries between 50 and 40% on the status window, which also coincides with setup changes 7 out of 10 times, so i also change the drive at that same time.

you may have experienced different results but i have had a consistent experience doing it this way for over 3 years working many days per week every week since sept. 07, 2007.

as far as storage. i work pretty much everyday so i always try and leave a set/stage/location with my batteries fully charged, which does not mean 5 bars (that is 80 to 100%), it means the charger is at a steady green...there is a huge difference and unfortunately some AC's egos can't comprehend this simple fact.

good luck....go ducks go.

dino