RED Battery and Charger Questions

[Jeremy Wiles]

A solar power system is being built to supply power to all my RED brick batteries while filming in remote places.

1. What is the power draw of the charger when charging two batteries? On the battery specs at the website it says, "Max sustainable power load is 100W @ 13.8V". Is that for 2 batteries or 1?
2. How many hours does it take to charge 2 batteries simultaneously to 80% and to 100%? On the site it says, "Full battery recharge time = 200 mins; or 80% battery recharge = 120 mins." Is that the time to recharge one battery at a time?

Thanks,

Jeremy

 

[D Fuller]

The red charger charges only one battery at a time. It charges them in sequence.

 

[Jeremy Wiles]

The red charger charges only one battery at a time. It charges them in sequence.

Yeah, that's what I thought, but wanted to make sure. So, at a 100W power load it charges for a total of 240 mins to charge 2 batteries to 80%. Is that correct?

 

[ericyoung]

Yeah, that's what I thought, but wanted to make sure. So, at a 100W power load it charges for a total of 240 mins to charge 2 batteries to 80%. Is that correct?

I think that's a good approximation. Bear in mind I'm pretty sure the charger will try and charge one battery up fully to 100% before starting on the other one, so it's not a case of getting two batteries charged to 80% if you aren't there to detach the first battery that gets to 80%.

[Edit] Actually, reading up on the charger manual available from Red.com support page, the charger does bring each battery sequentially up to 80% first, then goes into charging up the last 20% of each.

[Edit 2] The spec "Max sustainable power load is 100W @ 13.8V" refers to the DC out connection on the charger, not the power when charging batteries. Download the manual for detailed info:
https://www.red.com/support/all/downloads/15/release_history

[Edit 3] The spec "DC INPUT 22V / 5A MAX" for the little jack input on the back would imply a power load of 110W for charging from a solar charger, although another spec for the charger says "Power consumption 220W" so the manual seems a bit confused.

 

[Jeremy Wiles]

Eric, thank you for taking the time to look into this. It's a very big help.

 

[Jeremy Wiles]

I used a "Kill-a-watt" device to get an accurate read on the wattage draw of the charger. The charger is pulling a consistent 100 watts with two batteries on the charger. The camera with MX sensor plugged directly into the wall is using 72 watts with a monitor (5w) and harddrive (7w). I'm not sure why the manual says "Power Consumption 220w" when this is not the case. This could be when you're feeding power through the charger and into the camera using the cable, but that's not needed with the MX sensor.