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How to tell condition of Movi Pro Battery?

Discussion in 'MōVI Pro' started by Jim Elliott, Sep 24, 2019.

  1. Jim Elliott

    Jim Elliott New Member

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    Bought a Movi Pro recently, it came with 2 batteries, that looked a bit scratched on the sticker, about 1-2 years old I guess. They seemed to last for a fair amount of time, maybe an hour while I was setting up stuff and testing out, not a lot of movement, but as they got down to 30-40% while stationary, sometimes if I maybe touched the gimbal/camera and the motors were working harder, it just died. Had to swap them around to get it back on again and it was fine for a while (with not much movement).

    So i'm considering buying replacement ones but would prefer to buy slightly used. Is there a simple test I can do to see the condition of the battery? Maybe put one battery in the Movi and see how long it lasts? Go by serial? Observe the way it charges? Something to do with the lights on the back on the battery corresponding to its power?

    I guess the same question again would be 'how do you know when it's dead'? It gives me different readings on the back based on how much it's moving.
     
  2. Graham Futerfas

    Graham Futerfas Well-Known Member

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    A lot of people have switched to using DJI TB50 Batteries with an adapter made by Ignite Digi. It's an expensive switch, but unfortunately we had problems with the Movi Pro batteries not aging well. I had 16 of those batteries at one point, and I watched them grow less reliable over a year and a half.

    I'm not alone, and I don't fault Freefly for this, but the nature of those batteries being LiPo's and super-lightweight, which is great for drone and aerial work where every ounce of weight counts, isn't so great for people like me who use the Movi on the ground on jibs, cars, dollies, and handheld, and have to power tons of power-hungry cameras and accessories.

    If you watch your Movi Pro batteries charging, they'll eventually reach a stage where the light on the charger flashes from green to red every few seconds. That means it's in a "balancing" phase, where it's trying to keep the 6 different cells leveled up. They need to sit in this phase for quite a while, maybe several hours, and apparently removing them during this part can damage them. Of course, it's not really practical on some film sets to do this, or to track the condition of so many batteries.

    As someone who uses the Movi Pro for professional shoots every week, I can say the TB50's really made the it a much better work horse, and more reliable. If you go that route, get the ones with Lemo plug outputs, in case you need to power some follow focus receivers or other 30V tolerant accessories that can trip the circuit breakers of the Movi Pro.

    Here's a link to Ignite Digi's site -- they're a couple of super-awesome, very clever guys (much like the team at Freefly :)):
    https://www.ignitedigi.com.au/products/tb50-battery-to-movi-pro
     
  3. Jim Elliott

    Jim Elliott New Member

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    Those ignite plates look good, but I probably only use it for 1-2 hours at a time and maybe a couple of times a month :-/
     

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