I have looked through user guide available online and section on battery charging is rather vogue. Their 1A charger should charge battery in 5 hours but whats next. Does it shut off after 5 hours and goes to maintenance mode? Is it OK to leave battery connected ? Their "battery facts" section is right on. Whatever you do never leave lead/acid battery in discharged state for more then few days. It will never recover.
If you replace original battery with one of same capacity follow Profoto directions. With larger batteries use as many amps as capacity in aH/10 for 10 hours or follow battery manufacturer directions.
witek wrote:
... Their 1A charger should charge battery in 5 hours but whats next. Does it shut off after 5 hours and goes to maintenance mode? Is it OK to leave battery connected ?
Yes. From their Charger document:
"Maintenance charging. All the Profoto chargers will switch to maintenance (trickle) charge & reconditioning mode after the battery is fully charged. This prolongs the battery life time and makes it possible to have the charger connected at all times. Continous charging has a positive effect on the battery life."
BTW, Spencer, thanks for reseaching the AcuteB battery innards: the pics are helpful, too.
Any more updates to this? I could use some battery solutions.
I just got an AcuteB and tested it. I got 32 shots with the modeling light on the whole time before the battery died. Of course, it was not 32 non-stop shots. It was over an hour of shooting. Still, I was hoping for more.
Profoto expressly recommends NOT using the modeling light with the Acute B. I can't even remember the last time I really needed the modeling lamps on my AC powered packs either.
John Ng wrote:
I just got an AcuteB and tested it. I got 32 shots with the modeling light on the whole time before the battery died. Of course, it was not 32 non-stop shots. It was over an hour of shooting. Still, I was hoping for more.
Spec is 50 minutes of modelling time per battery, so all is well.
Yes, all is well with the new kit, but, looking for options for a spare without spending $250 for an extra battery.
My AcuteB is always plugged in as per instructions. So, I think I will buy a generic battery, as posted above, for $15-24, removing and rotating the battery from the cassette once a month, so I can have a spare on location, if needed. I just have to make sure to bring my tools on a shoot in case I need to disassemble the battery to swap it out. Until I can save up more $$$ or find a better solution.
I've been using 2 extra spare batteries pretty OK now. The terminals on the Werker batteries aren't as wide as the Profoto ones, but I don't think that's an issue yet. I just bought a small Torx screwdriver and leave it in my camera bag. I changed out a battery yesterday mid-shoot with a family, took about 3-4 minutes. $250 for the little cassette is a little much. I would pay $125 for it though.
I recently got into changing a battery mid shoot, with the torx driver, etc...minor nuisance, but truly they are smoking crack for the battery chassis.
I bought the Werker battery suggested above. I'm having a problem when I swap out the original Profoto battery with the Werker. It seems to work when I tested it. But when I actually took it out to a shoot, I can't seem to get it to work. All I get when I press power and hold is the beep and all lights come on, which is normal, but when I release the button, lights goes off. When I swap back the original, it works fine. When I went home to test out the Werker battery, it seems to work, but as I played around with it, I notice that sometimes it stays on and sometimes all light are on when it goes on. And at times, I can't get it to stay on.
Now if someone could come up with an AC adapter... that'd be really cool also, when AC is avail.
I don't feel like buying the $225 charger. I found when shooting inside , the supplied charger keeps the batt level up , when shooting slowly at less than max.
After dumping $2k into the unit, $225 for a spare batt-casette was not specially irksome. Fits right into the 600B carrying case.
Hi there!
I have followed this thread for some time with great interest. Now I do own two of the AcuteB and I am absolutly satisfied with them.
Noew I have some questions, as I have to replace one of my batteries. Do I have to remove the fuse first before opening it? What do I have to take care of?
Another thing I am very interested in is the possibilty to use the 2A charger (normally for the 7B). Does anyone have use it for the 600 batteries yet? And: is there a chance to use alternative battery charges who are not in the price range of 200 dollar and beyond?
Thank you very much & Happy New Year!
Chris
