XDCam Batteries
 

Any Advice on which battery system would be the best with the XDCam HD Cams? Longest runtime? charge time? cost? weight?

thanks

Runtimes are generally a product of the watt/hour rating of the battery, not the brand or the mounting method (Anton Bauer or v-mount).

I have 90wh lithium batteries, it seems to last about 3-4 hours on the camera.

There's a hierarchy in efficiency/weight based upon the cell technology. It goes:

NiCD (Nickel Cadmium, old school)
NMIH (Nickel Metal Hydride, newer school)
Lion (Lithium Ion, best efficiency per weight)

Each tech has a different product name with the Anton Bauer folks. Dionics are the newest Lion batteries...about $450 for a 90wh Dionic. A 90wh litthium ion for example, is a pretty lightweight battery. A NIMH battery of the same weight and size would probably be only 45-50wh (and run an XDCAM for only about 1-2 hours).

There is a new stream of batteries coming from China these days, being sold under a vast number of names. I own some resold by batteries4broadcast.com, and so far after 10 months mine are working fine. The chinese comapny making them is called Beillen.

Thanks Nate, will the IDX Endura E-10 98whr Vmount batteries work on this Camera (350)? I am pricing out equipment for the complete XDCAM HD 350 setup (Cam,lenses,Batteries,case, etc..) i am soon to make the purchase... so i want to do some research and get the right accessories. You guys are a great help....thanks a million.

Brian.

I'm using the IDX Endura 10S and 7S batteries on my F350 with no problems.

cheersd

Morton

To confirm what Morton said, but put another way:

V-mounts are v-mounts, and 98wh is a good capacity for the camera. I personally wouldn't go below 90, but you certainly could.

Anton Bauer
 

Joe Teodosio from Anton Bauer said he wouldn't recommend the Dionic 90 for the 350 (not that it wouldn't work fine, just not the best for this particular camera).

We had Hytron 140's from our previous cameras and he recommended we stick with those. He said the Dionic 160's would be fine, but the expense doesn't add up for us and the improvement from the 140's wouldn't be very significant.

I was surprised because we entered the conversation with me saying I was looking for some new lithiums to save weight and he lost a sale by telling me that we had was the best setup ... probably gained many more sales from us by being honest about his products.

AB told me the same thing. They highly recommended the Hytrons with the XDCAM because of the power spike when the recording system starts up. Among other things.

Actually their specific advice was to have a mixture of batteries. The Li-ions have a limited lifespan whether they are used or not. So they recommended to me that I perhaps have 2 Dionics and 2 Hytrons.

My Dionic 90's have served me well, although I do get fed up with the constant changes often needed on longer shoots.

The Hytrons are better battery chemistry for handling the larger power drain with a 50 watt camera light in operation.

That said, I too am using a Dionic 90 as my main battery and I don't put the VDR in SAVE mode which eliminates a lot of those spikes, and keeps the camera ready for action. The last one is now moot since the cache record function has been implemented.

-gb-

Val from Sony mentioned that it's almost pointless to use the save function unless you are only using the camera as a live head.

I'd have to agree. But if I was using it as a live head only, I wouldn't have a disc in the camera anyway so I'd be unlikely to gain much by using the SAVE function in that scenario either.

-gb-

Brian - having just been through that process, here's a suggestion I got re batteries from Greg Penniket, a friend/colleague cameraman in New Zealand who was among the first to go the XDCAM route (SD)...

He emailed and said: "My batteries are the largest I could find and are:
Globalmediapro Li 90s Stats- 13.2Ah 14.8v 190Wh the 190 meaning it goes
for many hours!"

FYI - the 120-volt mains power V-mount unit for the XDCAM HD can charge a battery while running the camera, so if you do not anticipate any extended run time with batteries alone you could conceivably save a bit by not buying the double charger. (You can actually keep your batteries up to snuff while running the camera to download to your NLE).

Also - although we haven't yet bought the Globalmediapro battery, it's definitely on the future shopping list because the two batteries we got from Sony don't last very long - especially if doing time-lapse shots.

Globalmediapro sells/ships out of the UK.

Michael Knight.

The Globalmediapro batteries are the Beillen units I mention above...same as my Batteries4broadcast.

Something to keep in mind with the Dionic 160. You have to declaire it as "dangerous goods" to take it on a plane and are limited to 2 bricks. If you travel a lot, save the hassle and go with something a bit smaller or non-lithium. I went with the Hytron 140 and it's great.

I'm using Swit S5115S 115W/h NiMh V-lock batteries. These were pretty cheap, yet I am delighted with them. I get about 3 to 4 hours of typical use from one brick. Being NiMh they are heavier than the Li-ion equivalent, but the extra weight on the back of what is a pretty short camera really helps balance it up well, esp with a larger or heavier lens. When I used the camera with some IDX Li-ions, I found I got arm ache when handheld a the camera was too front heavy.

That's true, Bob. I recently saw a web site selling high capacity LIon batteries in v-lock and a/b that separate into two halves, thus rendering the battery safe for airline travel (they were labled as airplane safe) cause the positive and negative material are apart which would prevent the internal shorting that has caused all the fires with these things.

-gb-

There will still be complete Li-ion cells in each part of the battery pack and these can still fail and start a fire. The problem with Li-ion cells is the way they fail. Most battery cells get hot when overloaded but nicads and ni-mh and similar break down and get less efficient as they over heat, wheras Li-ion cells produce more and more current as they heat up, so they get hotter still and you get a thermal run-away. Eventually they catch fire and the chemicals in the cell itself will burn fiercely. Nicads don't burn. This can happen with any Li-ion cell, even a cell phone battery. Clearly you don't want fires starting on planes and that's why the amount you can take on board is limited, to reduce the risk to an acceptable level.

I love the Pro-X from Switronix ( www.switronix.com ). I have a few 130s . They are well made and last long.

Thierry.

Nigel, I'm aware of what you are saying. But the batteries I referred to SEPARATE the cells. That's the whole idea behind the design, to become airplane safe. In many batteries like those for laptops and cellphones, there is only a thin mylar sheet that separates the positive and negative side of the battery internally. It was contaminants in the mfg process that rubbed through over time from vibration causing a short that plagued the Sony made batteries.

BTW, any battery which has a full charge can burn if the contacts or the two plates internally short out. Lithium Ion batteries just have the highest energy density per area at the moment. So if they short, they can produce more heat energy for their size, hence the limitation on size, or more correctly, amount of lithium content (8 grams or less) for airplane transport. I send you a link to the site as soon as I remember where it was so you can see what I'm talking about.

-gb-

Yep. The reason why the AB's are so expensive is because of all the computer technology inside that constantly monitor the condition of the cells and act to prevent any potential disaster.

Li-Ion are inherently flammable because the material itself is flammable, regardless of external shorts. It is different from any other battery chemistries in this respect. There is no way to separate a Li-Ion cell to make it safe. You probably think of making the pack smaller by separating it into 2 halfs. There is a transportantion industry standard, limiting the amount of Li-Ion in a pack. This trick would help it to sneak it "under the radar."

That's true Alex about Lithium. No, the batteries I saw aim to separate the two materials so that the possibility of an internal short that would start that Lithium fire is removed. I'm not saying the airline industry will buy into it and accept this method of 'fireproofing' li-ion batteries, but I do think it's a clever idea if it works.

-gb-

Just am trying to separate facts from fiction :-)
I am very closely involved in the battery industry, on the technical level. If somebody had invented and delivered a solution like that, it would be on the first pages of all the publications I am getting...

It's there, I just can't remember the site I was browsing. I'm thinking I followed a link asking about the quality of a particular LCD monitor, and then found the batteries on that same site.

Good to have your tech knowledge on batteries. I myself spent 25 years as a tech in the semiconductor industry and have worked with some very nasty stuff, chemically speaking.

I gotta find that website so I can send you guys the link. I'm looking. I tend to keep my browser history limited so that's no help.

-gb-

You can't possibly separate the negative and positive parts of a cell. The cells rely on a chemical reaction between the different chemicals within the cell. As well as being highly flammable the chemicals in Li-ion cells are about as toxic as you can get. While you may be able to separate individual cells, which will reduce the risk, you can't get away from the fact that once a Li-ion cell gets hot enough (for whatever reason) the chemicals inside the cell will ignite in an intense and possibly explosive manner. Nicad and the like simply don't do this, the chemicals used don't just burst into flames. A li-ion cell submerged in water can also self-ignite, there also extremely difficult to extinguish.

I still can't find the site I was on, but the more I think about it, they were probably separating the pack into smaller pieces to 'slip under the radar' as Alex stated.

From the diagram I remember, it looked like they were splitting the battery in a manner that each piece was only offering an external connection of positive or negative to eliminate them being close enough to each other to get shorted out accidently from an exterior position.

But yeah, I agree that you can't separate the two active chemicals within each cell. Maybe I worded my original posts wrong.

What I meant about other battery types being dangerous was that a direct short, or reversed connections on a fully charged alkaline, nicad, NiMH, lead acid, what have you, may not cause it to flame up internally like lithium, but to get hot enough to ignite any flammables in close proximity to the battery. I've seen lead-acid batteries explode when shorted out. It's the massive current flow from a short through the internal resistance of the cells that generates heat, which creates more resistance, which creates more heat, ad nauseum in a thermal runaway until the casing usually ruptures and starts to leak.

Anyway, we've drifted off topic about which batteries are good for running your XDCAM camera with.

-gb-

Yes any cell or battery can start a fire or explode. But most cells when they overheat the resistance as you correctly say climbs. Increased resistance will REDUCE the current flow (ohms law, I=V/R), which reduces or at least prevents complete thermal runaway. Li-ion cells are completely different, the resistance falls as they heat up, the current increases quickly and you get true thermal runaway follwed by self ignition. Correctly designed Nicad and NiMh cells should not explode as they should have overpressure vents. Lead acid cells can explode as they produce hydrogen gas. As you say Greg we have gone off topic, but it is important that people understand why Li-ion batteries are so much more dangerous than Nicads and NiMh.

Totally agreed, and the press has done a good job of educating the public with the high profile battery recalls.

Here's a good read about what's being done.

http://www.technologyreview.com/read...nergy&sc=&pg=1

More links to Lithium Ion horror stories

http://wcco.com/consumer/local_story_148150249.html

http://news.com.com/2102-1041_3-5942...=st.util.print

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/co...0&keycode=2111


And here is some good 'factual' reading...

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...30314081843218

This should be enough information for everyone to take to heart.

Looking back at my original statement about the website showing these batteries, I did say separation of positive and negative 'material' whereas I should have said separation of positive and negative 'external connections' which is where this whole discussion drifted of topic.

Mea culpa,

-gb-

No problem, I wish you were right :-)
Would take care of many headaches in the battery industry...

Greg,

The batteries you are mentioning are from SWIT.
Their large capacity (S-8170S) bricks can be devided in two pieces, so that you can stay under IATA his norms.

http://www.swit-battery.com/swit2006...ig/s-8170s.gif

Greetings!