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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 :)

RED BRICKS losing capacity. Advice?

Brandon Fraley

Brandon Fraley

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I've had one, and now two bricks seem to loose a significant amount of capacity over the years and am curious if there's anything that can be done to fix this and also what the best protocol is to insure the longest lifespan of a battery.

Thanks! :D

-B
 
+1 ...3 now!!
 
Thanks JP! Didnt know this one.
 
For maximum life, store them at room temperature at a ~50% charge. Also, only charging them up to 85 or 90% would prolong their life, but that's probably not something you want to do.
 
All lithium batteries wear out over time. I've got some RedBricks that are now 3 years old and they're showing significant loss of capacity.
 
I have a bunch I bought in 2008 and still going strong. I have a trickle charger that I use to charge the batteries when not on a shoot and also store at 75% capacity if I know I am not shooting the next few days. This helps but there is a finite life to batterys and they seem to vary widely in their individual longevity.
 
Hey Gonzo!

two more questions: is battery memory a thing? I'm in the habit of only draining my batteries half way before changing them? Is that bad, and if so, can they be re-trained? Also, I'm thinking possibly that one side of my charger might be malfunctioning, rather than the battery. It occasionally flashes orange/red, which i dont see explained in the manual. Any insight?

Thanks again!!!!

-B
 
Was gunna ask this same exact question. Thank you.

Can you test them yourself? Similar to how the Canon DSLR's tell you the health?
 
We have a mix of Redbricks & Hawkwoods. When the Redbrick were starting to show 10 minutes left,AC's getting nervous start changing them with 15 minutes left.... then they start dying at 15 minutes and so the cycle continued until we were changing when there was 30 minutes left. I then insisted we try letting batteries die completely and after a bit of persistence the cutoff time started getting shorter where now 6 out of 8 batteries accurately show the minutes left to 0 minutes and countdown to shutoff.

The life of the batteries vary from 1 hour to 2hrs 20 so I have started getting them recelled as their life becomes shorter. I am in the UK so sending to the US becomes prohibitive, but I found a guy in Staines who does it. The three I have had done so far have are 172Wh as opposed to the standard 140Wh and yesterday we achieved 3 hours running time on the camera !
 
Simon N said:
We have a mix of Redbricks & Hawkwoods. When the Redbrick were starting to show 10 minutes left,AC's getting nervous start changing them with 15 minutes left.... then they start dying at 15 minutes and so the cycle continued until we were changing when there was 30 minutes left. I then insisted we try letting batteries die completely and after a bit of persistence the cutoff time started getting shorter where now 6 out of 8 batteries accurately show the minutes left to 0 minutes and countdown to shutoff.

The life of the batteries vary from 1 hour to 2hrs 20 so I have started getting them recelled as their life becomes shorter. I am in the UK so sending to the US becomes prohibitive, but I found a guy in Staines who does it. The three I have had done so far have are 172Wh as opposed to the standard 140Wh and yesterday we achieved 3 hours running time on the camera !
Click to expand...

Simon, would you have a contact you could share for that guy in Staines?
 
Yes, the company it called Texnet-IT and the contact is either Sue or Clint. Their phone number is +44 1784 253600 and I paid £135 & VAT to have batteries recelled to 172WH I believe they can discount dependant upon quantity but not 100% sure about this. Not the quickest of turnaround times but if you've got downtime then that would be the point to do it.
 
Simon N said:
Yes, the company it called Texnet-IT and the contact is either Sue or Clint. Their phone number is +44 1784 253600 and I paid £135 & VAT to have batteries recelled to 172WH I believe they can discount dependant upon quantity but not 100% sure about this. Not the quickest of turnaround times but if you've got downtime then that would be the point to do it.
Click to expand...

Hey, I just read this. I'm based in Norway, do you know if there is a similar service like that this side of the pond? Maybe in Germany somewhere?

Cheers!
 
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