He all! I'm new to the Movi and this thread. Have a few problems and thought I'd put em out there. 1) I seem to have a dead battery. I did leave it on the Movi overnight with the Power turned ON. Thought I heard that the Movi has a way of shutting off on its own before the battery is too discharged. But now it seems dead. Guessing it's toast, but wanted to ask about that circuitry and also get the community's thoughts... More importantly, the Movi is not working. I get three green blinking lights and thats it. Looking into the connectors and the firmware now, but any thoughts/advice would be very welcome! Many thx! Glad to have the support!
UPDATE: Just updated firmware to 4.01. Now I get a IMU error and the lights go on solid for two seconds then the go out. Seems like a dead battery issue but I have 4 batts and this happens with all of them. I got the unit used, so I guess that's possible, but seems unlikely... In the Freefly Configurator, the Battery indicator on the bottom reads 0 Volts.
Hi Cliff, welcome to the community. It's sad to hear of your bad start, but I hope the best for your gimbal future. There are a lot of threads already that mention your problems, give advices and solutions. Best use of the forum is to search for topics you are interested. So I just make it short - yes you can kill batteries. Even if the Movi switches off before the battery is to low, I think everybody switches off and puts in a new batt if there is only one of the three lights. When you leave in a batt the whole night, there will be power distributed even when the gear is off. This also happens in your home, when you leave electronics plugged. There is always power running and lipo is a very sensitive system. So sorry for that one. I use a lipo checker to constant monitor voltage. The second problem - there could be a lot of reasons - I would search the forum. One thing is bad balance, another stiffness set to zero, but there are long threads discussing that issue. Hope that helps - best Markus
Hey Markus - Thx for the reply! I hear you about the batts. I just can't believe that all four are dead! They also read around 16V when checked with a standard Volt meter. (I'm working on getting a Lipo Checker now). I've been searching the threads, but haven't found the answer yet. Right now it seems like a Power issue. The Green LEDs are not staying on more than two seconds before all going off. Balance seems OK. On the GUI, The Stiffness settings are all well above 0. The Batt indicator reads 0Volts. Sometimes I get a IMU Error, but sometimes not... Very confused.
Cliff: Sorry to hear about the problems you're having. Certainly leaving a LiPo battery connected with the MōVI powered on will kill the battery. It is hard to believe that all four are dead, though. The LiPo checker will tell you what's going on per cell. You can get them from the local hobby shop or from amazon.com. If you get the one with a low voltage alarm it will remind you either turn off the MōVI or disconnect the battery. When used on a movie set, the alarm going off mid-take might win you some new "friends." The other thing to remember is that a voltmeter on a battery imposes almost no load, so the voltage you see with just the voltmeter connected is not a true representation of what the voltage is when you connect the battery to the MōVI. If you have a battery in the MōVI with the MōVI's power switch in the off position, there is no current drain. The switch isolates the battery. Check out the battery precautions in the MōVI documentation. Short summary: 1. Do not store the batteries fully charged. Take them down to the point where two LEDs are lit. Some folks do this using the MōVI, some rig up an automotive light bulb as a dummy load, and others use snazzy LiPo chargers that have an automatic "Take to Storage Voltage feature.") 2. Do not completely discharge the LiPos. It kills'em. 3. Don't let them get too hot, or too cold. 4. If they physically puff up, discard them. (Google search for how to dispose of them). 5. Tell them that you love them. (This doesn't do any damn good at all for the LiPo, but it will make you feel better). Andy.