To all Red Charger owners

[Mike 'Fireman' Ross]

Not a bad word to say about bricks or charger; mine have taken a hammering and performed almost flawlessly. I'll continue to use them with Scarlet & EPIC when I'm not going lightweight.

Only thing that ever went wrong was the breaking of the sprung bolt that holds the rotating base support for the charger in place. Metal fatigue or physical damage? Dunno. Field-stripped the charger to extract the loose bits (to avoid a possible internal short) - that was straightforward, problem solved.

The trick, which is well-known, is to swap batteries when they get down to 25% or so - they charge from there to full much faster than from empty to full.

Mike

[Jon Shaw]

On a side note to Red bricks charge on other brand chargers like the global media or IDX?

[KETCH ROSSi]

Since you got your answer I still like to add that if you need fast charges you need to buy a double channel V-Lock battery charger, and don't use RED's, if speed is not an issue buy RED's charger with confidence.

As far as RED's Batteries "Bricks" I can say that having been using them for years and having had dozen of them at work, I only had one single problem with one charger, and one single problem with two batteries,
one was fixed and working solid, while one unfortunately failed again and she is a goner.

So RED Chargers and RED Bricks, 3 years of use, all conditions, only those that travel as much as I do, know what it means to any Battery, to go form Freezing cold to boiling hot, both Dry and humid,
indoor and outdoor, Dozens of batteries and Chargers, ONE ISSUE, ONE TIME, that is pretty good adds, I would say.

So counting the thousands of them sold, the ones that had issues, are a super low percentage, it goes back to the same issue with iPhones, when you say that 100k
of them were sent back, you say WOW they are bad,then when you see how many Millions of them were sold, the percentage is very very low ,of unhappy costumers... Just saying... ;)

However for traveling, if you need many Bricks, need to consider restrictions, and better consider other brands that make 100's and 90's as RED's are 140's.

[dino g]

there is a very simple trick to using the red bricks and chargers, it is knowing the math.

on a red one it took 1 minute to discharge a red brick 1%, on an epic at this point it takes 2 minutes to discharge a red brick 1% (jarred spoke about power management tools coming in future builds, so when that happens the discharge numbers will surely change on epic and scarlet, but i digress).

here is the point of this post, if you discharge a red brick to 40% left ( 60% used) it takes 60 minutes to recharge.

if you discharge to 35% it will take not 65 minutes, but double for that extra 5%, and this continues until about 15% left...where it actually gets worse because now the battery is too hot to charge and must cool down before it will accept a charge.

so if your indicator says 40% ( or about 3 bars) take it off and charge it...you can actually have only two batteries on a red one shoot and if properly managed, never have down time...(not recommended though)

so 40% = 60 minutes to recharge to a solid green and no red lights on the battery ( note 5 light red lights means 80-100%, not 100%, only when the charger changes to green and the lights on the batter go off is it fully charged)

35% = 70 minutes

30% = 80 minutes

25% = 90 minutes

20% = 100 minutes

15% = 120 minutes

10% = 140 minutes (plus or minus depending on the ambient temperature and the proximity to direct sunlight while being charged) - if you can put the discharged ( 15% or less) battery in a refrigerator for 10 minutes, then charge.

5% = 160+ minutes

0% = 180 + minutes ( almost 25 of that is waiting for the battery to cool)

this information may not be in any manual, but i can tell you from real world experience, (and not many people have more of that with these cameras and batteries than we do), that these are the solid numbers...

take away, change your batteries at between 35 and 40% and they will last a long long time.

dino

[Julio Quintana]

Great post, Dino. I wonder if this concept carries over to the Redvolt batteries as well?

[dino g]

Great post, Dino. I wonder if this concept carries over to the Redvolt batteries as well?

good question, i have not used the redvolts on pro shoots that often, only playing around, i will say they take generally, a long time (not very scientific) to recharge.

[Matt Fleming]

there is a very simple trick to using the red bricks and chargers, it is knowing the math.

on a red one it took 1 minute to discharge a red brick 1%, on an epic at this point it takes 2 minutes to discharge a red brick 1% (jarred spoke about power management tools coming in future builds, so when that happens the discharge numbers will surely change on epic and scarlet, but i digress).

here is the point of this post, if you discharge a red brick to 40% left ( 60% used) it takes 60 minutes to recharge.

if you discharge to 35% it will take not 65 minutes, but double for that extra 5%, and this continues until about 15% left...where it actually gets worse because now the battery is too hot to charge and must cool down before it will accept a charge.

so if your indicator says 40% ( or about 3 bars) take it off and charge it...you can actually have only two batteries on a red one shoot and if properly managed, never have down time...(not recommended though)

so 40% = 60 minutes to recharge to a solid green and no red lights on the battery ( note 5 light red lights means 80-100%, not 100%, only when the charger changes to green and the lights on the batter go off is it fully charged)

35% = 70 minutes

30% = 80 minutes

25% = 90 minutes

20% = 100 minutes

15% = 120 minutes

10% = 140 minutes (plus or minus depending on the ambient temperature and the proximity to direct sunlight while being charged) - if you can put the discharged ( 15% or less) battery in a refrigerator for 10 minutes, then charge.

5% = 160+ minutes

0% = 180 + minutes ( almost 25 of that is waiting for the battery to cool)

this information may not be in any manual, but i can tell you from real world experience, (and not many people have more of that with these cameras and batteries than we do), that these are the solid numbers...

take away, change your batteries at between 35 and 40% and they will last a long long time.

dino

Thank you for your thoughtful post Dino, really appreciated.

[Sean Lee]

That is a seriously informative post dino g, thanks.

[sander kamp]

In the course of 3.5 years I have bought 4 Red batteries and 2 chargers.
2 batteries died and the other 2 are not in great shape
3 times a charger broke so far (I had one replaced, one repaired and one is now broken)

Maybe it's the tropical heat over here or the rough rentals?

[Thomas Wright]

Firstly, Dino, great post that is some seriously helpful info, one might expect that to extend the life of the battery too.

Secondly, I think if you run a bunch of accs of the p/d-tap and the camera shuts down the accs continue drawing current and this is what usually kills batteries since V=IR and R is constant V drops (some accs will go down bellow 9V before shutting down) I increases to make up for voltage drop and contacts get burnt and mounts and housings melt.

Thirdly, switronix make a more robust pin receptacle but it shouldn't be needed if you treat your kit with care.

Fourthly, you might want to secure your battery as a bump to the release is prone to allowing the battery to fall off and then you've got trouble.