NEED ADVICE: NEW BATTERY OPTIONS

[stu aull]

Well, if your on a budget like I was (am) when I bought my Scarlet, then the Chinese V-mounts have served me the past 4 years VERY well, at apparently about ½ or LESS the cost of the "mainstream" suppliers being mentioned. I bought 4 130-160wt WITH CHARGERS for under $200, built in D-tap, LED power display. So: buy 2-3 as suggested for...$900 PLUS a charger? or maybe consider the Chinese versions and get double the number of batteries for near the same price. Oh, and shipping is FREE.(Or spend ½ as much. Whatever.) 4+ years use now, a couple are starting to wind down. I will buy them again.

Stu Aull
SX199
Alaska

 

[Abiodun Shote]

Well, if your on a budget like I was (am) when I bought my Scarlet, then the Chinese V-mounts have served me the past 4 years VERY well, at apparently about ½ or LESS the cost of the "mainstream" suppliers being mentioned. I bought 4 130-160wt WITH CHARGERS for under $200, built in D-tap, LED power display. So: buy 2-3 as suggested for...$900 PLUS a charger? or maybe consider the Chinese versions and get double the number of batteries for near the same price. Oh, and shipping is FREE.(Or spend ½ as much. Whatever.) 4+ years use now, a couple are starting to wind down. I will buy them again.

Stu Aull
SX199
Alaska

Same here..., quite scary the first day I used them because they are Chinese but 2012 till now they are still working, BTW bought 2 Switronix PB 70 (vlock) for my bmcc, they are expensive (comparatively for a 77Wh) and never lasted up to a year. I'll stay away from anything Switronix cause I was never the only one with such experience.

 

[Colin Nusbaum]

Thanks to everyone for the feedback here. It is all very helpful. So far, I've been convinced to settle on the AB mount. As I am just entering the big battery game now, it seems like a near unanimous decision.

As for which battery brand, I may hold out to see what kind of on-camera battery plates come available in the coming weeks/months. Namely, I am crossing my fingers that the OMOD battery plate will include some hot-swappable juice. Having a hot swap option might impact how big I need these batteries to be... I sure like the idea of hot-swapping Switronix Hypercore Slims.

 

[Jacob Ryan]

Well, if your on a budget like I was (am) when I bought my Scarlet, then the Chinese V-mounts have served me the past 4 years VERY well, at apparently about ½ or LESS the cost of the "mainstream" suppliers being mentioned. I bought 4 130-160wt WITH CHARGERS for under $200, built in D-tap, LED power display. So: buy 2-3 as suggested for...$900 PLUS a charger? or maybe consider the Chinese versions and get double the number of batteries for near the same price. Oh, and shipping is FREE.(Or spend ½ as much. Whatever.) 4+ years use now, a couple are starting to wind down. I will buy them again.

Stu Aull
SX199
Alaska

Hey Stu, do you have a link to this Chinese batteries? Or a name? I need smaller (under100) batteries for travel.

 

[Tom Dowler]

I'm in the same boat as a lot of people here - moving up to Raven or Scarlet-W from C100/300, FS7, etc. and having to think about big boy batteries for the first time.

Unlike Colin I'm going to go with V-lock because it means not adding on an expensive battery plate in addition to the i/o expander. If they were offering an AB I/O expander like the V-mount one, I'd be very tempted to go that way.

Anyway....

Is there any way to tell if a specific battery will communicate % remaining info to the cameras just by looking at the specs on B&H? Or is it just trial and error / asking people on here what they've used?

It would be great to compile some kind of master list of which brands and models *do* communicate and which don't.

I also noticed in another thread there may be an issue with the Switronix L90S batteries not providing enough current for the Scarlet-W. I notice there's a lot of batteries that claim a 6.3A current, and others that boast 10A.....

How much draw do these cameras actually have? Should we all be avoiding those that don't give us 10A....


So many questions....

 

[Remington Chase]

We only use AB mount and really like the Dionic 90 HCX batts. But there is a new batt tech coming that has better energy density then LiPo and is not lithium based so may not have the travel restrictions but the most amazing thing is that they self charge and you will see them this year.

 

[Sheldon Norton]

Hello!

thanks for this very valuable info!

Would you change anything you stated? Or is it all still pretty accurate to now?

thanks for your time

I researched the crap out of this and my main criteria was 1) light weight 2) avoid Chinese batteries (no hate against Chinese, I am one) 3) Decent WH 4) Cost

It basically came down to the new $260 Switronix Slim Core (82 wh) vs $350 Bebob V150 (147wh), mainly because both were light, have good company reputations and affordable. I ended up going with Bebob because

1) Bebob is by far the lightest 147wh battery. Only 1.81 lbs (825 grams). That's super light vs. WH.
2) I was told by several users that using a 95wh or under battery with accessories (7Q, transmitter, wireless FF from time to time) will drive you insane as that's a battery swap around every 70 minutes of so.
3) The Switronix was 0.41 pounds light, which is awesome, but the thought of switching batteries all the time and breaking workflow almost every hour outweighed the light weight.

PAG would have been awesome except they are very expensive and they are 96 wh which mean a lot more battery swaps than the Bebob. Yes, you can stack them, but at 1.6 lbs per battery, with two PAGs stacked it's a very heavy battery - 3.2 lbs. Light weight is very important to me as I shoot tons of handheld and on stabilizers, etc. I have a small jib that I love shoot with and any extra weight really effects that.

So ended up with Bebob. The customer service has been great and very responsive. Some CONs
1) Ships from Germany so shipping to LA (including extra custom fees) was about $90 for 6 days
2) Paypal rips you off with their shameful exchange rate. I ended up paying $35 more than the actual Euro vs. Dollar exchange rate.
3) Buying international just kind of sucks in general.

Oh yes, and Bebob chargers are quite cheap. About $265 for a dual, simultaneous charger. They are made in Germany and cells from Japan which is a big plus for me as Germany make awesome stuff - Arri, Zeiss, BMW, etc...

The batteries are in mail, so hopefully they are good. I've heard many good things about them from people here so fingers crossed. Here's the link

http://www.bebob.de/Batteries-and-chargers/V-Mount/batteries/V150.html

 

[Alvise Tedesco]

Or is it all still pretty accurate to now?

Dynacore mini are 800 grams for 155Wh (specs-wise, since mine are still in transit from China), so lighter than Bebop.
But Bebop, if I remember correctly, are the lightest in the sub 100Wh category

 

[Matthew Quinn]

I really can't say enough about the CS at switronix.. when I started out with my epic I used redvolts, then got 2 switronix v-mounts. I have increased that to 6 vmounts and hope to get another 4