Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

Often asked about the Vagabond II typically pertains to battery maintenance and/or performance, which are closely related. Obviously, the battery in the VII is rechargeable, allowing many many uses of the unit. However, not all rechargeable batteries are created equal. Old cordless phone batteries and AA batteries were Ni-Cd batteries, which were recommended to be discharged fully before recharging to avoid the “memory effect”. Also, they could be stored empty and recharged before you needed them, and they were fine. Newer NiMh batteries over come those issues of memory and can be topped off at any state, and work for quite some time.

The battery in the VII is neither type of battery. It contains a sealed lead acid battery (SLA), very much like what is found in your car, motorcycle, lawn mower, etc. These types of batteries require being fully charged at all times. Failure to do so will result in sulfation of the battery, which then reduces the capacity that to which the battery can be charged, ultimately killing the battery. So, immediately following use of the VII, in needs to be recharged. The sulfation process can begin within hours of discharge. Also note, all types of batteries have a certain amount of self discharge. This means you can fully charge batteries, then leave them for a few days, weeks, months and you will get less charge than when they were pulled of the charger, even if they were not used. This is very important to remember with the VII, as it does not care if the discharge was self discharge, or from use, just that it is discharged. Sulfation can happen either way.

So if you have a VII sitting in the closet for the past 18 months, odds are the battery is bad. If the unit smells like rotten eggs, the battery has probably sulfated (sulfur has the distinctive smell of rotten eggs). If the battery is especially hot, swollen, cracked or leaking, then the battery is probably bad. If you charge the unit, but it dies very quickly upon use, then the battery is likely bad, even if it does not exhibit the other signs. If you have a fairly new VII, contact us for more in depth evaluation, but if it is somewhat older, and has worked fine for that time, then it is likely the battery.

We have recommended in the past to leave the VII charging at all times. Not everyone is comfortable leaving anything plugged in at all times, so we have altered the stance so that once fully charged, the VII can be unplugged if topped off at least once a month, once every 2 weeks is better. Some chose to use a self timer (the outlet style found at pretty much any Home Depot or Wal Mart type store) to regularly top off the battery. Topping off the battery can be done at any state of charge with no ill effects.

The above description also applies to the V150 and V300 Vagabonds as well. However, the new Vagabond Mini units that will soon come do not require such maintenance as they will be based on lithium battery technology. This style of battery will have a lower self discharge, no memory affect, and does not sulfate, plus is lighter.

Additional information about Vagabond II and Vagabond-Mini posted by Paul:
(link to original thread: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=922)

Properly designed Lithium batteries VS SLA batteries are the rough equivalent of a modern car to a Model T.

Lithium batteries are not that difficult to charge because the battery pack contains digital control of temperature, charge current, discharge/over-current protection and safe-cell voltage discharge cutoff. Our packs contain 16 cells and the "PCM" board that controls these functions separately. It was before this high technology was developed the Laptop and cell phone batteries overheat and blew up

Our packs are individually highly lab tested for all parameters and are highly consistent and produced in clean room, labs. The packs are verified be completely short circuit safe and cannot be over charged or over discharged or over heated.

In contrast, SLA batteries are a bunch of lead plates and acid, produced in smelly garage,, with near zero control or parameter testing . . . they'll be known as lead anchors in a few year.

As for charging, the actual Lithium charge is quite simple and features a constant current stage, a constant voltage stage and a finishing stage. Pretty much the same as an SLA charger.

But Lithium batteries produce different voltages depending on the cell chemistry and number of cells in a pack. They run from 3.2.V on up to 500V . . .so the proper pack must be used and must be matched with the proper charger.

Our packs are officially 14.8V 8.8AH. The full charged voltage is 16.6V and the median voltage over the discharge cycle is 14.8V. We use a 14.8V 3A charger that has a charge time of 3 hours. They can be rapid charged in as little as 1HR but this will reduce the lifespan of the battery and requires a more expensive charger.

This is high tech, high reliability equipment, made by the very best factory we could find.

Back to SLA and V1/V2 . . . the biggest source of failure. If you deep discharge the battery and fail to immediately recharge it will be sulfated in about three day (sulfating is not a yes/no issue and begins anytime the battery is discharged by about 25% . . . so over typical use the capacity to charge and hold a charge always deteriorate over time.

A badly sulfated battery, when connected to a charger that is not temperature coupled to the battery (few are), can result in excess charging current the battery cannot accept, so the battery can overheat to the point a bulging case, and even lead to fire or explosion. This is no specific to Vagabond but, indeed, applies to all SLA battery systems.

Mini Lithium is fully immune to all these conditions.

Since this is a company forum, not an impartial public form I can speak freely. In that regard I was astonished to see Pofoto (a presumed "pinnacle company) introduce an nearly identical product to V2, but less capacity and all the rough-around-the -edges 1999 technology including 17AH Chinese SLA. Another disturbing fact they have to created a firmware mod for their lights to work properly with the $1700 "BatPac".

This is a direct result of their unusually fast recycle time and switching power supply and lack of power supply input voltage range . . . .exactly the reasons that caused us to move from the original "switching power supplies" in pre production Einstein into the released V1 and now-in-production Einstein V.2

I spent a couple grand to test Profoto mono-lights with Vag mini and here's what found:

A single Profoto Compact 300WS cannot bootup or work at all with Mini, nor will a D1. Another disturbing finding was 2 900°K color difference Compact and D1 and the measurement of both Profoto mono lights show a more severe color shift VS power setting than AB, which was slightly better than Elinchrom RX600.

I was able to properly run a pair of Elnchrom RX600 or D Lite, or to interchange either one with an AB1600 or Einstein.

We have run up to four AB1600 (2580WS total) on Vag Mini. Also ran Zeus 2500 but the cycle time is over 20 seconds.

_________________
Luap C. Ffub

Hello,

Is there a way to retrofit a V-II inverter with one of the new Lithium Batteries? As much as I love my V-II it appears obvious that the mini is a much better alternative in all aspects: weight, perfoemance, safety, etc. However, I hate to spend another $200+ knowing that given the availability of the newer technology I probably would have to dump my V-II in Ebay for no more that $100 or so.

Thank you,

No... they don't play nice together. See Tech Support's post near the bottom of the page here: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=922

From TS... "No, the Vagabond Mini battery will not operate properly with the VII. As of now, we do not know of any substitute Lithium battery for the VII."

Lithium batteries have to be purposed designed. Vag Mini draws 20A from the battery and V2 draws 60A. It's going to take a lot of engineering to achieve optimal capacity and weight and efficiency. I can only do so many projects at a tine,

Over the past month I have purchased a complete location/studio lighting kit. This includes 2 E640s, a Vagabond II, 2 high output reflectors, the cyber commander 2 CSXCV triggers, 2 light carrying bags, 2 51 inch PLM umbrellas (one silver and one white), and all the accessories associated with them. I said all that because all of these items are still sitting in the boexes due to the backorder status of the E640s. Since reception of the vagabond II, I have followed the instructions of fully charging the battery every 2 weeks. This upcoming tuesday will be the 2nd time I have to "top off" the battery. I have spent alot of money on this setup, and after reading this article, you are telling me that by the time I get the E-640s my vagabond II will be at LESS than full working capacity due to the nature of the battery? I think it's messed up, that the vagabond II was shipped before the lights were knowing that I would not recieve them for months. This means a battery I paid full price for is deteriorating even though it's not being used. Since the nature of the battery is already known, why was the battery not withheld until the lights shipped so that I could receive a "new" battery?

Ellis

As long as you are "topping off" the battery every few weeks then the battery capacity shouldn't diminish between now and when your lights arrive.

Right. The sulfation only occurs on batteries with significantly less than full capacity (25% less than full). While the battery will self-discharge, you keep it above that threshold by topping it off regularly.

Hello

I want to buy a few Zeus power packs, and I need mobile battery pack for them. I'd better buy Vagabond II or Vagabond mini?
I also want to use the Vagabond as the inverter, as I live in Ukraine (220volt) can be used as an inverter Vagabond, if I take off his battery?

The VII will give you better recycle times, as it is a more powerful inverter. You can use it to step down the voltage from 220V to 110VAC, however, you will need to keep the battery installed.