Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I have looked for any discussions on the same issue but have found nothing so will ask the group as a whole and see if anyone else has run into this intermittent issue.

I do not use the Vagabond Mini™ Lithium (or the older V2) a lot but when I do, they have been great. In December, on a location shoot in Texas, I pulled my Vagabond Mini™ Lithium out to run a 1000x Dynalite pack and single head but the pack/head would not fire. The model lamp would turn on but pack would not discharge (model light was only turned on briefly). Went to plan B and later in my hotel room, checked the pack, head and then the Vagabond Mini™ Lithium. All worked fine.

Today, a fellow photographer who has the same Vagabond Mini™ Lithium battery, had the same issue happen to him. Different 1000x Dynalite pack, different head and different Vagabond Mini™ Lithium battery but when he went to power pack, nothing. Model light would work but pack would not charge. Back in studio, all seems fine.

Temps in Texas was in the 70's for me. 30's for the other photographer so nothing extreme.

Anyone ever have this issue???

Roger

For clarification, the Dynalite packs did not work on location when powered from the VML, but back "home", the same Dynalite packs in the same VMLs did work well?

What were the power settings on the Dynalite packs and how long did you give them to charge?

Were the model lamps off when trying to charge the Dynalite packs?

Did the Dynalite packs charge, and just not fire, or did they not charge at all?

A bit different for my shoot than the other photographer's shoot.



Yes for both.



In both cases, we do not remember exactly but with my situation, I expect I started with a low power setting, no model light. To the best of my memory, I think I got a "pack charged" light but would not discharge. I changed heads, cords, etc but only had one pack. Initially thought it was my pack but again, when I used the same pack/heads at hotel room that night, pack powered up and head discharged just fine.

The other photographer had his model light on initially but turned it off. His pack initially did not charge at all. Later did (20 minutes) and at studio worked as it should.

Has this only happened once (to each of you)? Working blind, it is really hard to guess what happened.

Did you use the same outlet when working between the location and the hotel? Or did you otherwise use both outlets and get the same result?

Were you running any other equipment on the VML at the time?

As for the indicators, the battery fuel gauge is independent of the inverter and can show a full charge, while there may be an error (like overheat or bad fuse) in the inverter. The LED next to the USB is the tell tale light. If off, then there is no power coming from the sockets.

If red/yellow/orange-ish, then there is a fault, likely a thermal fault.

If green, the unit should be working OK, however, there can be an internal fault not allowing to work OK, but I would not expect it to not be OK, then be OK again.