Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I received a Vagabond II a little over two weeks ago, 4/15/10. I started charging it upon arrival, expecting to charge it overnight, but within an hour the light beside the charger input was solid green. So I unplugged it and put it with my other equipment for a shoot that weekend.

That Saturday, I used the V II for less than 200 shots with my B800, no modeling lamp, power ranging from 1/16 to full, triggered by CyberSyncs, and it performed according to expectation. Upon arriving home, I plugged it back into to 120VAC wall outlet and let it charge overnight. One thing I noticed was that the green charged light was still lit and I had no red indication, even after plugging it in.

This last Thursday I took it out for another shoot. I got maybe 25-30 full power pops out of my B800 with it and then it started to fail about every other shot. I thought maybe I was shooting too fast so I slowed my pace a bit but realized I was steadily losing power. I dropped back to 1/2 power and got another shot or two off before it completely stopped working. I checked the charge indicators... green was still illuminated solid. Completed the shoot with 580EX II and a small umbrella as my key, very frustrated as I needed the full power of the B800 to use PCB softbox and compensate for moderately bright evening sun. Fortunately, a few of the initial images made using the B800 came out nice but I'm still frustrated at the fact that the shoot had to be ended rather abruptly.

At any rate, upon returning home I plugged my B800 directly into a 120V wall receptacle and it works just fine. My Vagabond II, however, still displays a green indicator only, even plugged in to charge. If I unplug it from the wall, the green indicator remains lit constantly. Red indicator never comes on at all. Also, I can plug the Vagabond into the wall and my B800 into the V II but I still don't have enough juice reaching the B800 to fire it or even run the fan.

It should be noted that I'm fairly deaf to high frequencies but my wife & daughter told me they heard a series of long high-pitched beeps but only when I had my B800 plugged in, powered on, with the Vagabond switch turned to either SLOW or FAST. I checked the indicators and, again, I had the solid green charge light as well as the green light by the switch. Both constant. No red.

I hope I've given enough details. If I've left anything out please let me know. Thank you in advance for your consideration.

Tim

The high pitched tone is the low battery warning tone. If the unit is low on power, the red LED should light up when charging. Be sure to fully install the cord into the VII, otherwise you may not get a good connection. Also, be sure the outlet you are using is a working outlet. If both of these check out to be OK, then contact Customer Service, as the unit may need to be repaired/replaced.