Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

So I ordered A Vagabond Mini. Loved it. Until the other night. I charged my Mini for three hours prior to the shoot just like the manual suggests. I should mention that it had been about a week since it's last full charge. An hour and a half into the shoot the battery dies on me. No notice. Nothing. Luckily I was able to find an outlet nearby. My husband messed with it, plugged it in to charge and about 20 minutes later it came back to life. What's going on here? Has this happened to anyone else? I'm really hoping I don't have to go through an exchange. :|

When you connect the charger, connect it to the wall first. The LED on the charger block should be green (there are no charging indicators on the inverter). When you connect it to a less than full battery, it should turn red until it charges fully, then it turns green. If you connecet it to the battery and it stays green or switches back and forth, then there is a connection problem. You may wish to try both charging into the inverter as well as directly to the battery. IF the same problem happens with both, then the problem is likely in the charger. If it happens with one or the other, that is possibly where the problem lies. Let us know what you find and we can help get you squared away.

A bunch of folks on another site asked you whether you left the modeling lamp on. If so, that would kill off the VML (and any other battery operated source) pretty quickly :-(

That would indeed drain the battery quickly, especiall if at full power and also taking full power shots.