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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

odd redvolt led display

Samir Patel

Samir Patel

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Noticed something odd when I charged one of my redvolts today.

Normally when I press the led indicator button on a redvolt it shows me just how much remaining 100%, 66% or 33% but after I recently charged one of these redvolts when I pressed the button only the 1st and last led lit up (not the middle one) but they didn't stay on they were blinking green.

I used it in my scarlet just to double check and when it started up it showed power at -.1 something like that before it changed over to 28 min remaining and operated as normal. After I took out the redvolt (after using about 15 minutes) it still exhibited the blinking outer lights only when the button was pressed.

Anyone had this happen in the past?
 
Same thing just happened to me on 2 of my 10 Redvolts. These two seems to hold 15mins of charge on them. Anyone know what's going on?
 
I have the same issue - and think that these batteries are just old and tired. I'm exploring the possibility of having them recelled as I now have 16 Redvolts and many are hot holding power well.
 
I'm waiting to hear back from Red support but @Mark would love to hear what you uncover re: recelling the Volts.
 
Just got a reply from Red support, bad news, it's an indication of permanent failure.
  • Hello Kevin,
    Thank you for contacting RED SUPPORT.
    The 1 and 3 LEDs flashing on the REDVOLTS is an indication of a Battery Pack permanent failure.
For the record, these Volts were only 2 years old. If I had to guess the # of cycles they've had, I'd say there's 400hrs on my Epic and let's assume they've been used 1/10th of the time as I have 10 Volts, that's 40hrs, at 30mins a cycle that's only 80 cycles +/-. Not sure how I should feel.
 
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I also noted that on my Epic the redvolts would go on until about 10% and at the 10% mark the camera would initiate a low battery shutdown sequence. Weird and kind of annoying.
 
Kevin Kwok said:
Just got a reply from Red support, bad news, it's an indication of permanent failure.
  • Hello Kevin,
    Thank you for contacting RED SUPPORT.
    The 1 and 3 LEDs flashing on the REDVOLTS is an indication of a Battery Pack permanent failure.
For the record, these Volts were only 2 years old. If I had to guess the # of cycles they've had, I'd say there's 400hrs on my Epic and let's assume they've been used 1/10th of the time as I have 10 Volts, that's 40hrs, at 30mins a cycle that's only 80 cycles +/-. Not sure how I should feel.
Click to expand...

Well. I think I had only used that particular redvolt 4 or 5 times since I bought it brand new from RED as I have a habit of making sure I cycle through all batteries evenly.
 
@Donald. You'll be glad to hear that the two are indeed early Redvolts.

@Samir. I'm so sorry to hear that. I wonder if there's a process for getting an RMA in your situation?
 
RED Volt failures

RED Volt failures

I purchased two RED Volts late July 2015, with the travel Charger. In Oct one of the Volts started blinking with the FIRST and LAST LED. RED said it was faulty and replaced it under warranty. In Jan 2016, the same battery they replaced in Oct started doing the same thing, FIRST and LAST LED blinking. They replaced this under warranty. The day after I receive the replacement the other battery that I purchased in July started doing the same thing. Someone mentioned having a battery for years, I would be happy with that, but my RED only had 119 hours of use and three batteries failed. I wondered if the charger could be an issue, they reported no. Note that I use BRICKS as the primary power source, but as others mentioned, the VOLT seems to always supply power regardless of if it is on/off or if it has other power provided. I have a small pelican case that the batteries and charger fit in, so they are not just tossed here and there.

I have never charged the batteries before storing. I also do not charge unless they are below 50%, even until 20%. RED suggested that I run the batteries down before storing, so I have started doing that.

If anyone has suggestions to improve battery life, please let me know, otherwise - be advised that I have seen this many times.

Thank you
 
Charles Lind said:
I have never charged the batteries before storing. I also do not charge unless they are below 50%, even until 20%. RED suggested that I run the batteries down before storing, so I have started doing that.
Click to expand...


My set of 4 volts is 18 months old and they give between 15 and 20 minutes of runtime. I have always stored them charged. Sometimes for a couple of weeks between uses, as I don't use volts on every job. Once in a while I get the low-power shutdown at 15%, sometimes at 10%, once or twice at 18%.

Is it really advised to store them largely depleted; to run them all the way down and charge the night before a job? As somewhat of a tangent from the original post, what are people's approach to this?
 
Funny. This thread is 2 years old and there still no real answer to this... I've got 3 sitting at home that sit like ornaments.
 
No real answer? Not sure what to expect other than found in this thread. Top and bottom LEDs say EOL. We used Redvolts in the Quad Module for some time, I was initially surprised to see them being used "one by one" instead of discharging them more gently in parallel what I had expected. Recharging is painfully slow, we kept 8 Redvolts cycling to power our camera during a shoot. After switching to V-mounts I have one in the SH for hot swapping, that´s where they shine, never looked back. I really liked the form factor, but honestly with a practical run time of 20min or less chances were great to miss a shot. May be with advancing technologies there will be another approach but looking at Weapon this format unfortunately just seems to be slowly phased out.

Cheers

Ulf
 
I don't think top and bottom LEDs mean EOL though. I have 8 redvolts but only use them occasionally as a backup between swapping out V-mounts. I think two of them still flash the top and bottom LEDs and they still work. I will try to charge that one particularly and run the cam til shut down to see how long it runs.
 
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