ranger rx battery question

[thepixies]

hi,

recently i purchased the ranger rx and am having some problems working out how fussy the battery in it is.
just a few questions for someone with experience.

should i completely use up the battery of the ranger before recharge?

and can i run the ranger rx while its connected to mains power ( so i can shoot all day in the studio, without recharge.

thanks guy. really useless forum.

all the best for 2010.

 

[Big Mike]

What type of battery does it have? Is is a Sealed Lead Acid battery, for example? Once you know that, you can easily Google it and find the best charging methods.
It might be slightly better to fully drain it before recharging it, but that's not always going to be practical and I doubt that everyone does that.

and can i run the ranger rx while its connected to mains power ( so i can shoot all day in the studio, without recharge.

If you have power available, why would you even use the battery?

 

[thepixies]

at the moment my lighting kit only consists of an elinchrom free lite that connects to the ranger pack, and some canon speedlights.

so the battery pack is all i have - just wondering if it could be used while running off mains. thanks mike!

 

[Big Mike]

After doing a bit of research...I see that the Ranger RX is a pack/head system, where I was thinking it was just a battery system for mono lights.

With that in mind, I'd guess that it's perfectly fine to have the unit plugged in while shooting in the studio. I can't imagine they expect you to charge/draing and then recharge while shooting in-studio.

 

[thepixies]

ok thanks mike - i just found it interesting they did not mention it in the manual. thought it might be dangerous to the battery. cheers.

 

[Big Mike]

I would think that it's got some sort of smart charging system that won't overcharge the battery if it's plugged in for longer than the three hour charging time. And I'm not sure if running through the battery all the time is good or not, but I'd guess that the engineers who designed this thing, gave it some thought.

 

[mikehejt]

You should keep your Elinchrom Ranger batteries topped off all the time. This means plugging them in every month or so when they are not being used and make sure they are topped off. This is the same for profoto or broncolor batteries for power packs. Always check the manual though to see how long they think you should charge them for.

As far as shooting while you charge goes....This is a complicated question. Some packs will ruin the battery if you shoot while you charge. If definately puts extra stress on the battery to do this, but I use a broncolor Mobil a2r both on location and in the studio and I can shoot with it plugged into the charger. It will shoot all day long while charging, then I can unplug and take it outside to shoot unteathered. This works great for locations where I can be plugged in sometimes and not plugged in other times. It also pulls so little current that I can always be sure that I am not at risk of blowing a fragile old household circuit breaker or fuse by plugging it in (a problem I used to have a lot when shooting profoto packs).