Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

My VML (a 230v version, i'm in the UK) is only showing 1/4 power at all times, even when the charger tells me its fully charged (led goes green) i've hardly used it so I know it can't be that the battery life has just dropped off, unless it has somehow?

I'm going to LA for a couple of weeks in about a month to shoot and was hopefully going to use it then but its scaring me a little with the 1/4 power issue.

Any advice?

Even when not under load, it still shows 1/4?

Can you meter the output voltage of the charger?

Can you meter the output voltage of the battery when "fully" charged?

If you remove the battery and plug the charger into the inverter (front or back), and switch the inverter on, do your battery level LED's come on?

Does the unit otherwise work OK?

The charger output is : 16.8v

The battery output "full" fresh off the charger is : 16.78v

The 3 leds came on when I plugged the charger in to the back of the invertor, but then flickered and 2 went out (to the one remaining 1/4 power led)

When I turn off the invertor all 3 leds come on for a second and then die out (as they always have) which made me think that the leds are ok.

It seems to be working ok, its powering my lights, but i've not been using it much because I'd be too scared to take a 1/4 full battery to a job.

When you plug the charger in, it should go into the wall first, and you should get a green LED on the charger.

When you plug the charger into the VML, you should get the charger LED to turn red. If this does not happen when plugged into the inverter, plug it into the battery directly. If it still does not happen, put a load on the battery to drain it a little and try again. If you can get the LED to go red, wiggle the cord to see if the LED will flicker green/red as though there is a loose connection.

You can also check all Anderson (red/black) connectors to ensure all the contacts are forward in the housing, not corroded, and equally elevated. A flat, corroded, or pushed back connector may not be making good connection.

You can also charge to (indicated) full and run a model lamp from the VML. Presumably it has a 150W bulb, so you would want to run it about 1/4 to 1/2 stop down from full (basically, don't go over 120W). Run time at 120W should be about an hour. 100W, about 1 hour 20 minutes. 75W (half power) will be just shy of two hours. If this is close, then the battery is taking and holding a full charge. If not close, then the battery may be reaching end of life.

If you would like to send the inverter in for service, we can arrange for it to be delivered to LA, and you should be able to bring the battery along with you when you come. If the inverter works fine here, then the battery is likely the cause. If the battery needs to be replaced, we can ship that to LA as well.

By not shipping the whole device, you save on the lithium battery handling procedures. I would suggest contacting our repair department for details on what the charges would be if the inverter was the problem vs. the battery, and to work out logistics, depending on where we would ship to, once repaired.