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Movi Pro powering off at 45%

Discussion in 'MōVI Pro' started by Rick Gerard, Aug 30, 2017.

  1. Tom Waugh

    Tom Waugh New Member

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    Hey Graham,

    Thanks for the recommendation :)

    Just to clarify, our power adapter requires batteries that output 10A or ~120W.
    They can be smaller V locks like the IDX E-HL10DS, just that they can output 10A.

    http://www.idxtek.com/products/e-hl10ds/


     
    Rob Weidner likes this.
  2. Graham Futerfas

    Graham Futerfas Well-Known Member

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    Thanks for clarifying, Tom! I must have mis-read your info as wH, not watts.

    That's great to know, since I have 8x 95wH VLocks, but I thought they wouldn't work.
     
  3. Graham Futerfas

    Graham Futerfas Well-Known Member

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  4. Tom Waugh

    Tom Waugh New Member

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  5. Brandon Obey

    Brandon Obey Member

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    I had a similar issue. Turns out the batteries were not actually fully charged though it said they were. so I made sure to charge them and I didn't have the issue anymore.

    Rick,,

    Make sure when you are charging your batteries that you see the full green light on the charger first. The indicator on the movi batteries is not something I can count on anymore, unless I know that the batteries were fully charged when I removed them.

    I too went ahead and got the power adapter from Ignite Digi.


    What are the spec for the recommended Gold Mount or Vmount batteries to use?
     
  6. Rick Gerard

    Rick Gerard Active Member

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    I spent most of the last two days running the MoviPro and here's what I found. As before, if I run #1 and #2 batteries I get a quick shutdown when the batteries reach about 45%. After the shutdown I can just swap out #2 with battery #3 or #4 and start running again. Battery 1 shows about 45% and #3 shows about 98% after tuning. Both batteries fairly quickly drop to about 75% which I think is really odd. It is like #3 is charging the #1. Both batteries will run down to about 20% and then I get a quick shut down with no Critical Battery warning.

    Here's the weird part, if I change out #1 now and put #2 on the right side Both batteries show about 40% after a few minutes and they run down faster than if I were using a freshly charged #3 and #4. At least it seems like they run down much faster. This time both batteries will get to about 20% then I get a critical battery warning and I can shut down.

    For some more weirdness, if I recharge everything and give all batteries a good amount of time with a solid green on the charger to make sure they are balanced, but I put #1 on the right and #2 on the left I still get the immediate shut down when the batteries get to about 45% but I swap out #2 on the left side with #3 or #4 I don't seem to get the same behavior with the batteries both quickly coming close to the same charge value. With #1 on the right side I get a critical battery warning that precedes the shut down.

    Here's the other odd part, I still never get a automatic shutdown with #2 attached. There is always a critical battery warning, but if #1 is on the right I get a shutdown without the warning. It happens when paired with battery #3 or #4 or #5. I didn't have time to test it with #6.

    This makes me think that there is something wrong with the circuitry in #1 and that #2 may have a bad or weak cell.

    I'll keep taking notes and If I get up to Seattle sometime in the near future I'll drop of battery #1 and #2 so the guys in the shop can take have a look. I don't think shipping batteries that are behaving badly is a very good idea.

    Just to be safe I'm keeping the two suspect batteries in TSA approved flame proof Lipo battery bags and I am not storing them in the equipment case.
     
  7. Brandon Obey

    Brandon Obey Member

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    Hey Rick,

    I was getting similar issues but with a Scarlet W. Certain batteries worked well together while others didn't when the camera was powered on. But if I powered the camera off all the batteries behaved normally.

    What brand of cables are you using to power your accessories and camera off the Movi Pro?
     
  8. Rick Gerard

    Rick Gerard Active Member

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    I made my own D-tap cable for the Shogun Inferno, found a couple of Sony N to D-tap cables on Amazon and shortened them, and I use the D-tap cable that came with the Bolt.

    I also think this has to do with the power draw. The Shogun takes a lot of juice, the camera almost nothing. The Bolt also takes quite a bit of power. If I have everything powered by the Movi I get about an hour to an hour and a half with anything other than the combination of battery 1 and 2. With battery 1 paired with 3, 4, or 5 in I get about 20 minutes. With battery 2 paired with 3, 4 or 5 I get about 35 minutes. With the batteries that don't give me trouble I got about 2 hours of use with the rig powered on most of the time. I do put the movi in standby (double tap) when I move back to first position for another take but I don't power off everything else. When we reset or move to another scene I power off everything. So far I have not had any problems making it through a 10 hour day with the batteries I have.
     
    #28 Rick Gerard, Oct 3, 2017
    Last edited: Oct 3, 2017
  9. Brandon Obey

    Brandon Obey Member

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    I too just ran an extensive battery test. Out of a total of 8 of my Movi Pro batteries, 5 of them seem to deplete rapidly when the camera is turned on. I have 3 remaining batteries that work well with all of my batteries no matter what the configuration is and I do not experirnce rapid depletion of power.

    So essentially I have to have one of the 3 good batteries always connected to the Movi Pro in order to use all 8 of my batteries. (That's weird)

    Once I get my Freefly DTap to Lemo cable I will see if this is still the case.

    Currently I am using the Wooden Camera DTap to Lemo (I have a feeling this cable is causing the issues as when I am not using this cable I do not have this battery issue)

    If I have the same issue with the batteries while using the Freefly cable I will only use the movi batteries on Alexa jobs as I never have the battery power issue when using a Alexa Mini, with RED I might have to use the Ignite Digi adapter
     
    #29 Brandon Obey, Oct 3, 2017
    Last edited: Oct 3, 2017
    Joshua Van Patter likes this.
  10. Joshua Van Patter

    Joshua Van Patter New Member

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    After prepping my rig last night, I too, am experiencing this battery issue. I own 6 batteries. 2 of which(the original 2 batteries that came with the MoviPRO) are the ones acting up(always number your batteries). Basically, I went to throw them on the charger last night to top them off. Immediately, upon plugging them in, the light on the charger started flashing RED/GREEN. The other 4 batteries gave me a solid RED. I ended up looking into the Manual to see if there was a reason to why it was flashing back and forth and I couldn't find any details on it - also, the flashing seemed to be about the same pace, then after a while, it seemed to slow down. Upon throwing it on the camera this am. It seemed to rapidly draw power with the camera connected to the MOVI pro(wooden camera Dtap/wooden camera 24 inch Lemo to monitor) then at about 45% it immediately shut down. I was able to swap to the other 4 batteries and finish the shoot, but regardless, when I put these batteries away two weeks ago. They all seemed to be working fine. Any feedback would be appreciated, I sent a message to support last night. I'll repost back here when they get back to me. Hopefully there is still warranty on the batteries, considering I got the set up in Feb.

    Also, if any one has any details on how to keep the life of these batteries up and alive(leave for weeks at half charged not topped off?) for a longer duration of the time, please let me know. 6 months seems pretty weak.

    - Joshua VP
     
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  11. Rick Gerard

    Rick Gerard Active Member

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    Freefly recommends storing batteries with a charge level of 50% or so. I'm not sure about the best way to do that but I'm going to try it from now on.
     
  12. Joshua Van Patter

    Joshua Van Patter New Member

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    Yeah, I've heard DJI is the same way.. I wonder if my RED Bricks, I should be doing the same. Also, for storage, how long are we talking about here? Just a week? A Month? multiple months?
     
  13. Andy Johnson-Laird

    Andy Johnson-Laird Administrator
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    I would not leave LiPo's fully charged for more than 72 hours -- there's too much alt-facts on the Internet to determine whether 72 hours is the correct threshold, so it's more at the level of "the Goldilocks Effect" -- a week "seems a little too long." :)

    You can hack, I mean "build," your own discharging setup if you know which end of a soldering iron is the hot end and don't mind buying some light bulbs: https://www.flitetest.com/articles/lipo-battery-discharge-hack

    That said, you have to monitor the MoVI Pro voltage because if you forget you're discharging a battery and you take it below 3.0 volts per cell you will find that it turns into a paper weight.

    Hope this helps
    Andy

    Forensic Software & sUAV / Drone Analyst : Photographer : Videographer : Pilot (Portland, Oregon, USA): Trees=2, Ground=1, Props=11. :(
    The Ground Is The Limit™
    ---------- Forensic Drone Analyst : Forensic sUAV Analyst : Forensic Unmanned Aircraft Analyst : Forensic Drone Expert
     
  14. Rick Gerard

    Rick Gerard Active Member

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    This makes me think that Freefly should build a discharger with a cut off or modify the current chargers so they have a discharge cycle. If the current chargers balance the cells by somehow talking to the individual cells through the circuitry in the battery it makes sense to me that a properly designed discharge cycle device would also monitor the cells so that discharging would not throw one battery below the 3.0 volt death to the cell voltage. I can see that this could be a huge problem for a rental house. I'd hate to deal with it on a large scale.

    I would be very wary of just hooking up a bunch of light bulbs to the two pins on my MoVI batteries if there is not some built in circuit that keeps the cells balanced while discharging. For now I will discharge the batteries by running the MoVI and keeping my eye on the charge levels. I'll then pull them off at about 45% to 50% unless advised by the staff to do otherwise. I can keep most of them at about 50% if I switch them out on set and don't charge them right away. With any luck and a director that knows how to stay on schedule I should be able to limit the number of fully charged batteries that come home with me at the end of the day. A much more efficient and professional solution would be to make a charger with a discharge cycle or at least a little box with 4 connectors on it that would bring four batteries plugged into it to 50% and then disconnect automatically.

    By the way, how many cells are in a MoVI battery? What is the cut off voltage. That is important to know if you are going to build a discharger.

    I will call this a feature request. Maybe I should make a separate post.
     
    #34 Rick Gerard, Oct 5, 2017
    Last edited: Oct 5, 2017
  15. Joshua Van Patter

    Joshua Van Patter New Member

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    Hey guys, this is from Movi..

    MōVI Pro Batteries power the MōVI Pro and connected hardware, such as cameras and video transmitters.

    • MōVI Pro Batteries are 6s 1800mah packs with built in cell balance and power management.
    • MōVI Pro batteries are designed to last for hundreds of cycles powering MōVI Pro and camera packages and accessories.
    • Battery indicator on MōVI screen is for reference only and is not accurate enough to diagnose battery issues.
    • Battery indicator LEDs on battery are for reference only and are not accurate enough to battery issues.
    • If your charger is blinking red / green, that indicates the charger is balancing the cells.


    Tips for optimal performance

    • The cells only balance at the end of the charge cycle, thus it is important periodically to leave the batteries on the charger for an extended period of time (1 hour+), to balance the cells. We recommend once a week.
    • To make sure that cells are properly balanced, you should avoid removing the batteries from the charger pre-maturely, before the light turns to solid green.
    • Cells should be stored at 50% discharge when left for one week or more.
    • High storage and operational temps and high discharge currents will shorten the life span.
    • Non MōVI Pro batteries should not be used to power MōVI Pro.
     
  16. Chris Ray

    Chris Ray New Member

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  17. Brandon Obey

    Brandon Obey Member

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    Hey Chris, what are you using to mount the battery plate to the Movi Ring?

    Also, what 2 pin lemo cable are you using? DTAP to 2- Pin Lemo?
     
  18. Chris Ray

    Chris Ray New Member

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    I’m using the Female 2-Pin Lemo built into case. They also made me a V-Mount adaptor to mount on my Movi Pro. If you reach out to them and and mention my name, they will know what you’re looking for.
     
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  19. Brandon Obey

    Brandon Obey Member

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    I am using Movi Pro currently with Power Adapter x Hypercore batteries and I am having no power draw issues. I get around 1hr 23mins of run time. At first I thought it was my cables and turned out it was some of my batteries. The crazy part is the batteries that were giving me issues actually work better when using the Power adapter.
     
  20. Rick Gerard

    Rick Gerard Active Member

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    My run times are incredibly inconsistent. It depends on which batteries I use. One battery that was causing the entire system to shut down at 45% is working just fine now but two other batteries will occasionally cause the same problem. I have been very careful about getting the batteries down to about 50%, before storing, then completing full charge cycles before I head out on a shoot, and keeping records of each days battery usage. Sometimes I don't have time to fully charge batteries during the day of the schedule, but I always charge batteries fully and then wait for a while, then discharge them before any extended storage. I built an external load: Feature Request: Automatic Battery discharger to help with the process.

    The most confusing thing about the whole problem is that some batteries will return to normal operation without any indication and others will start kicking the system off at about 40%. The other odd thing is that if I have both batteries at 20% and put on a new one the battery meter shows about 98% for the new battery and 20% for the old one but in a couple of minutes both batteries will be at about 70% and they stay fairly evenly balanced until it is time to swap out another battery.

    I know that every lipo is different, but I think that the "smart battery" technology in both the batteries and the MovI Pro need a firmware upgrade. The circuitry just is not giving you accurate information on the batteries.
     
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