pauldudeck

Charles, I think when the RED cameras are ordered, their battery mount is an option. So, if you are planning on using Anton/Bauer batteries, you would not need their mount that goes onto the "battery cage". The QR-RED will just attach via 4 screws and then the cable would plug into the 6p LEMO. A brand new Dionic 90 will give you almost 2 hours of run-time and a HyTRON 140 will give you almost 3 hours of run-time. The camera draws around 55 watts of power, so it is a power hog! I hope it helps. Let me know if you have any more questions. Happy Holidays!! Paul

Dear All, Anton/Bauer is manufacturing a Gold Mount to be used on the new RED ONE cameras, so there is no need to fret as you will be able to use your existing batteries if you purchase one of these cameras. We should have the Gold Mounts available by the time RED starts shipping their next batch of cameras (#101 and higher). The Gold Mount is called a QR-RED and the list price of this mount is around $275.00. It is a Gold Mount bracket, with about 24 inches of cable, terminating to the 6p LEMO connector. This camera does have a high current draw of approximately 55 watts, so we would recommend choosing a battery that will supply you with the desired run-times. Please feel free to contact me with any questions. I wish you all a fun-filled and safe holiday season!!!!! Best Wishes, Paul Dudeck

Dave, Give me a call and I will "make you an offer you can't refuse" to replace them with brand new ProPac 14 batteries that come with a MAXX IV (4) year warranty. Regards, Paul Dudeck (800)422-3473

Gentlemen, I don't know if you are aware or not, but the laws (both domestic AND international) with regards to the transport of ANY/ALL li ion batteries will be changing as of January 1, 2008. These changes will affect cell phone batteries, computer battery, camera batteries, and the batteries that power your cameras. Like I mentioned, ALL batteries. With regards to travel: 1. You will NO LONGER be able to "carry on" ANY li ion batteries that exceed the 8g of aggregate lithium content. So, any lithium ion battery which is over approximately 95wh, you cannot carry on the plane with you anymore. 2. You will be allowed to "carry on" (2) lithium ion batteries which are individually less than 8g, but no more than 25g of total aggregate lithium. If these batteries are not connected to the device which they are powering, then they need to be put in a sealed bag or their contacts need to be taped/covered over to avoid any type of a short. 3. You will NOT be allowed to "check in" ANY lithium ion battery into the belly of the plane. Yes, I said ANY lithium ion battery. This would include spare computer or cell phone batteries, as well as, the spare batteries for your camera or steadicam. This sounds ridiculous, but it is effective January 1, 2008. I am sure this is going to affect a lot of you in your travels. This means that since you won't be able to bring your lithium ion batteries on the plane with you, you will have to ship them to your location!! Again, this is both domestically in the US and internationally, since the airlines are governed by international law. This will affect everyone that flies on a plane. There are other laws which will take place later in 2008, around October, and I will keep you informed of these as I get them. Kind Regards, Paul Dudeck

William, The issues with the HyTRON 50's that people are referring to are mainly with batteries that are about one year old or older AND is only when you are running them at high speed (150fps). The issue is when you run them at high speed, the high current draw causes a dip in voltage, which dips below the operating voltage of the camera and causes it to turn off. The same thing applies to the Dionic 90's and all other lithium ion batteries. Most batteries will work great for the first 6-12 months of operation, because they can handle the high current draw of the high speed camera without a problem. As any battery ages, the cells get weaker and can't handle that spike in current and causes a voltage drop that shuts the camera down. If you are not going to run the 435 at high speeds, then virtually any battery will work fine for you. I have heard of people using either Proformer batteries or Trimpacs for high speed applications. The cells in them are sub-C or full-C size cells and can handle the high current draws without any issues. I hope this helps. Kind Regards, Paul Dudeck

Claus, I will try and clarify things in brief. The airlines are getting tougher in regards to ALL batteries that are being brought onto a plane, whether they are checked in baggage or carried on the plane. This is mainly due to the fire in the overhead bin back in February, in which an ENG camera was to blame. The Dionic 90's are not restricted in any manner. However, to ensure that you won't have any problems, just tape up the "dog house or connnector block" on the rear of the batteries. I would suggest you do this to batteries that are either checked in or carried on..... With regards to the Dionic 160's, they are considered "HAZMAT materials, Class 9" and must be traveled with properly. If bring them on a plane, you are allowed to hand-carry (2) on the plane with you, along with a battery on the camera. If they are in checked in baggage, then they MUST be declared as CLASS 9 HAZMAT materials and shipped/stored properly. Again, you should tape up the terminals, as most airlines will make you do this. Just as a side note, as of January 1, 2008, the FAA/IATA is going to change their regulations on the shipping/travel of lithium ion batteries. With regards to batteries that have more than 8g of aggregate lithium content, you will NO LONGER be able to hand carry the (2) two batteries on the plane with you. You will only be allowed to carry the one battery with the camera. This is just one of the many changes with regards to the travel of lithium/lithium ion batteries that is coming in the near future. As I mentioned earlier, the continuing instances in regards to lithium ion batteries catching fire/melting/burning on airplanes, has the FAA and IATA really looking at the future travel of all batteries in general. I hope this helps. Paul

Dan, Yes, it is probably a bad/old battery causing the problem. The battery probably has a dead shorted cell, which the charger sees as a short and then causes itself to shut down to protect itself from the short. Regards, Paul

Brad, Yes, ideally, the best way is to keep them on the charger. If you are leaving li ion batteries off of charge, then the best way to store them is to discharge them to approximately 40% of charge and let them sit that way. Don't ask me why the 40% number, it is just the number that the cell manufacturers give to us. There must be some scientific formula, with this 40% number, that helps to either prolong the self-discharge or deter it in some manner. Regards, Paul

I thought it was the other way arround ! I Mean, the "irrecoverable self-discharge or memory effect ", i have seen this with my formely used Nicad and Nimh batteries. Mostly with the NP1 in the old days. So i thought buying only Li ion batts will not have this kind of problems.., :( Erik Erik, "Memory" was a term that was used a while ago. Many people have the wrong impression of what it really means. A battery cannot get "memory". It is impossible to do. In fact, what it really "refers" to was the very antiquated chargers that were used way by when. These chargers strictly used one type of charge "cut off" to determine when a battery was fully charged. This "minus delta v" cutoff is ok, but is not 100% accurate. As a matter of fact, there is no "one" perfect charge termination for any battery out there. Add the fact that the charger used a sole charge determination, with the fact that the cells in the battery were never balanced properly and most old chargers were "timers", so they would just charge a battery for a certain period of time. Well, that would be OK if the batteries were completely discharged every time you went to charge it. If the battery was half fulll, then you would overcharge the battery by up to 50%, thus causing alot of heat build up with the cells. What is the number one killer of batteries? Heat! Couple these phenomenons with a few more, and you get this so-called ?memory" effect..... If you want to read more about stuff like this, Anton/Bauer publishes the Video Battery Handbook, which is free. Just send me an email at pdudeck@antonbauer.com and I will be happy to send anyone a copy. This talks in general about charging batteries, cell technologies, lighting and more.... Anyway, to get back on track, "self-discharge" is when you leave a battery sit off charge for a period of time. The longer it sits, the more it will self-discharge. A NiCad or NiMH will self-discharge at a rate of about 3% per day. But, this self-discharge is 100% recoverable. If you use Anton/Bauer batteries and chargers, you will notice the "Balancing" mode, or flashing green LED on the charger. One of the features of the Balancing mode is to compensate for self-discharge and ensure that all of the cells in the battery are fully charged. Going back to my original post, a li ion battery may only self-discharge at a rate of 1% per month, but once it self-discharges, it is gone forever. Li ion has two main advantages over NiMH and NiCad: 1) weight and 2) a very low self-discharge rate. I hope this helps. Paul

Robert, The biggest issue with li ion batteries, no matter who manufacturers them, is the life span. Whether you use them or not, they will go bad. As with any re-chargeable battery, you should use them. The more they are used, the better off they are. One major drawback of li ion batteries is the fact that is has "irrecoverable self-discharge", which means if you leave it off of a charger, and it loses cacpacity, you can never get that lost capacity back again, unlike NiCad and NiMH which will charge up to 100% again. Li ion typically has a self-discharge rate of approximately 1% per month. So, technically if you leave a battery sit on the shelf for one year, you will only be able to use 88% of the batteries capacity. The 12% that you lost is gone forever. This is true for ALL li ion batteries, which is why you get a shorter life span on the cells. In my opinion, use the batteries to their potential!! Regards, Paul Dudeck

Sergei, Yes, as I mentioned, we work closely with all cell manufacturers and organizations that are involved in the re-chargeable battery world. When/if there is ever a viable product, Anton/Bauer will be the first to have it available. Please note that while specs seem great on paper, most specs are based on single cell testing at very low charge current and discharge currents. This makes the cells seem like they are very good, while if you put them to use/test in the real world, they won't hold up. The last thing we will do is release a product that does not stand up to our reputation. Once we are done with our testing of any manufacturers cells and have put them thru very long tests, then we decide whether to go further or not. Regards, Paul Dudeck

Charles, Sorry to confuse you, but I am referring to the amount of cells that are in parallel INTERNAL to the battery. Not ganging them externally for higher voltages or current outputs. Regards, Paul

Gentlemen, We have been looking at making a high power li ion battery, just like our Dionic 160. The Dionic 160 battery is the ONLY li ion battery that is manufactured/designed to handle high current draws. The cell itself is designed to handle high current loads as it is a military spec'd cell. Most li ion batteries can only handle loads up to 6-7amps. Any other li ion battery that can handle higher current loads is more than likely not backed by the cell manufacturer, and the manufacturer of the battery has just changed their protection circuit to a higher current level. This is not safe at all! There is a reason why the cell manufacturer only recommends a certain amount of current being pulled from the battery. Remember, li ion is the only rechargeable battery that has a flammable electrolyte. We were investigating using the same cells that we use in our Dionic 160 for our newer battery. However, we found that the individual cells contained too much lithium in them and even if we manufactured a high current draw 95wh battery, it would still need to be traveled/shipped as Class 9 Hazardous. Also, please note that any reputable cell manfacturer (like Sanyo) does not recommend putting more than 3 sets of cells in parallel when using li ion batteries. Again, there is a reason why the CELL MANUFACTURER does this; Monitoring more than 3 sets of cells in parallet gets difficult and the protection circuits may not work properly. ALL batteries that are over 100wh that we have investigated, use the same small cells and put up to 6-7 sets in parallet. this means that your battery has 24-28 cells in it. Another problems associated with having so many cells in your pack is that if ONE, yes, only one, cell goes bad, the whole pack is unusable. There are very few companies out there that are actually manufacturing their own batteries. To our knowledge, there are only two others besides Anton/Bauer. Most/All of the other companies are just purchasing batteries from a Chinese company and re-labeling them. They are chinese manufactured and of chinese cell quality. Some may be "assembled" in other parts of the world, but use inferior cells. Ask any of these companies to tell you exactly what is inside of the battery or exactly how the protection circuits work and they will give you the runaround. Reason is because they don't know themselves. They are relying on people overseas to design, manufacture and assemble their products for them. Where is the quality control? ALL Anton/Bauer batteries are designed, tested, manufactured and assembled in Shelton, CT. We can tell you exactly how our batteries work, what is inside of them and control the quality ourselves. Lastly, ALL li ion batteries need to be tested to UN specs and get UN approval for travel. Even if a battery is under the 8g of aggregate lithium content, the battery must be UN approved before you can travel with or ship it. Ask the other battery manufacturers if their batteries are UN approved and have them supply you with paperwork indicating so. YOU, as the owner of the batteries, are responsible for the battery. Once the other company sells the battery, they wipe their hands clean. If a company tells you that they don't need to have UN testing and approval to travel with their li ion battery, then the company has not done their homework. I hope this helps you in getting a better understanding of li ion batteries. We are continuously working on improving all cell technologies and are continuously testing all new battery types. We work with all reputable organizations that involve battery technologies and their safety. Paul

Hey I just had my battery mount changed on my flyer from NP-1 to AB. Another Op recomended I make this switch, b/c as I move up in rigs the batt's will move up with me, and if I every need to borrow a AB in a pinch it shouldn't be hard to find someone with AB's. That said I am looking to invest in a charger and batt's. I know that I will probably need some light wieght batts for when I am flying dvx100 or hvx200, but also might need some heavier batts for bigger cameras. Any advice would be great. Thanks, Brandon Hi Brandon, You will make a wise decision on going with Anton/Bauer, as most of the other guys can attest to. We are always looking to help out the steadicam community, especially you guys who are first starting out. If you would like, give me a call after NAB (April 16-19th) and I am sure that I will have some B-Stock leftover and be able to give you a great deal on it. That goes for anyone else also. Feel free to email me at pdudeck@antonbauer.com if you are looking for some B-Stock. If you are going to NAB, please feel free to come and see us at C#5929. Regards, Pau Dudeck

Guys, Be sure to come by the Anton/Bauer booth at NAB to see what is new for the film and steadicam worlds......... :o .........I am sure there will be some interesting items! We are located in the Central Hall booth C5929. See you there. Paul

i have a couple of batteries that are fine most of the time but sometimes just refuse to charge. i have tried them on 3 chargers but no joy. when i can get them charged they run fine. i have 3 ABC800H chargers, maybe they need to be upgraded or something...? any ideas? morgs Hi Morgan, He is correct, you can try and clean the contacts and see if that works. Clean the contacts on both the batteries and the chargers. If that does not help, I would suggest that you contact our Customer Support Department at (800)541-1667, give them the serial numbers of the batteries and chargers, and they can give you some more suggestions. Regards, Paul Dudeck i have a couple of batteries that are fine most of the time but sometimes just refuse to charge. i have tried them on 3 chargers but no joy. when i can get them charged they run fine. i have 3 ABC800H chargers, maybe they need to be upgraded or something...? any ideas? morgs Hi Morgan, I am sorry. I just saw that you are located in the UK. Please contact Rob Ploeg at our office in Kerkrade, Holland at rploeg@antonbauer.com or +31 45 5639220. Thanks. Paul

Gentlemen, Anton/Bauer has some product in B-Stock that we need to sell. We have the following items: 10pcs TWIN charger $495.00 each 8pcs TWQ charger $1000.00 each 15pcs HyTRON 140 $475.00 each 2pcs QUAD 2702 $1200.00 each 2pcs DUAL 2722 $1000.00 each Please contact me at pdudeck@antonbauer.com for more details. Thanks. Paul Dudeck

Hi Chris, This sounds too funky to be something of a normal fault. It may be a charger problem. I would suggest you contact our Customer Support Department at (800)541-1667 or support@antonbauer.com. Also, I would tell you to return the battery directly to us so we can have a look at it. We can then get an idea of what is going on. Kind Regards, Paul Dudeck

Hi Lav, Well, I must say that you have gotten your moneys worth with those ProPac 14 batteries. 15 years!!!!!! I think that may be a record. You can try putting the ProPac 14's on the Supercam charger, it can't hurt. I would strongly suggest you retire the LSQ4 charger that you were using. We discontinued that unit in 1988. While it was a good charger for the times, the InterActive chargers are much smarter and will give your batteries a better charge. One thing though, there is no way I can guarantee you will get another 15 years from your batteries!!!!! This alone should attest to you remaining a long time Anton/Bauer customer. You can contact the Anton/Bauer office in Singapore. Martin Soh would be happy to help you, as he covers the Pac Rim also. You can email him at martinsoh@pacific.net.sg. Anton/Bauer will always be around and here for you. Cheers, Paul Dudeck

Please be careful when to use the "reset" button on the batteries and when not to. I would suggest calling the Anton/Bauer Customer Support line at (800)422-3473 and they can trouble-shoot it with you on the phone. You can also send them an email at support@antonbauer.com. If possible, have your batteries along with the serial numbers of them available. Regards, Paul Dudeck

Hi Justin, The battery and charger both have a temperature sensor to ensure that a battery that is too hot does not get charged, nor a battery that is too cold. I would advise you to check the mushroom shaped pin on the charger. Make sure that it is not broken and maybe run a pencil eraser across the top of it to make sure that it is not dirty. Same goes for the battery. Check the corresponding pin on the battery, the one that is depressed lower than the others and make sure that it is clean. You may see a single "dot" on the pin. If you do, clean it. That may be causing the "HOLD" situation. If this does not help, then please call our Customer Support Department at (800)541-1667. Regards, Paul Dudeck

For anyone who may be interested, Anton/Bauer released a new 7.2v battery system to support the smaller mini-DV and HDV type cameras. The ElipZ battery actually mounts underneath the camera, inbetween the camera and the tripod. It is the industries first "All Day" battery, as it will power a Sony Z1 for 8 hours and the Panasonic DVX-200 for 6 hours. Different cables are available to power Panasonic, Sony, and Canon cameras. We also came out with the ElightZ, which is the industries first 7.2v professional light. The light comes standard with a 10w bulb, but a 5w and 15w are also available. Lastly, we also produced the EgripZ, which is a grip that allows you to hold the camera steady. We all know how these smaller cameras cause fatigue on your wrist and arms after shooting for even 10-15 minutes. Please visit our website and see the products for yourself at http://www.antonbauer.com/ List prices are as follows: ElipZ 10K battery package $299.00 ElipZ 10K battery $199.00 ElipZ battery Charger $179.00 EgripZ $129.00 ElightZ $149.00 Feel free to email is at websales@antonbauer.com or pdudeck@antonbauer.com Have a fun and safe holiday weekend. Regards, Paul Dudeck

Hi Jason, Anton/Bauer has an office in Kerkrade, Holland. You can contact them at: Anton/Bauer Europe, B.V. Eurode-Park 1 6461KB Kerkrade The Netherlands Martyn Sly-Jex msly-jex@antonbauer.com +31 45 5639220 We stock all batteries, chargers, mounts and have a complete Service Center there. Cheers, Paul Dudeck