Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I have 2 240V Vagabond Mini Lithiums. One of them wasn't working correctly[1] so I sent it back to the UK supplier for repair / exchange.

Recently I got the repaired / replaced Vagabond back, but it behaves slightly differently to the 'fully working' one. Could you please assist me in determining if this odd behaviour is a sign of a deeper problem (so should I send it back again?).

With the 'good' Vagabond when I put a fully charged battery in and flip the power switch the charge level LEDs come on instantly (< 1/10th second?).

With the 'repaired' Vagabond when I put the same fully charged battery in and flip the power switch the charge level LEDs don't light up... then over the course of 20 seconds they come on one by one. This seems rather strange.

So far all I have done is plug the repaired one in to an Einstein and see if it fires at minimum power (which it does), which is good because previously it didn't.

Could you please tell me if this slow LED light up is normal or abnormal behaviour?

Thank you.

[1] viewtopic.php?f=8&t=4164

This behavior is normal for older VML's. We did change this in later revisions of the boards so that battery level indicators come on instantly. Nothing to worry about.

The VML I sent in to be replaced was about 1 month old, and I've been sent an older VML as a replacement? How old might it be?

Shouldn't the VML I had have been repaired or been replaced with a new VML? Is it normal policy to replace faulty new VMLs with old VMLs?

That is not what we do when we do repairs or replacements. However, the UK shop is a distributor, and we cannot control how they handle replacements. I would recommend contacting them directly for clarification.

Could you please tell me how old the VML will be if it has this behaviour?

It would probably be better to look it up by serial number. You can email us for specifics. Also, remember the new unit could still be new, depending on how their stock was rotated.