AA batteries ... keeping them temporarily fresh

William--I know the Black Boxes have a good reputation for reliability but they aren't high voltage power packs, so the recycle time isn't as good as high voltage packs like the Turbo. I power my off camera flashes with a Turbo and an old Armatar Procycler pack--which is about 20-25 years old.

I should add that I also use a Dynalite Jackrabbit that was converted to NiMH last year and just bought the Quantum Turbo SC, which is very small and is also NiMH. I get recycle times of 1 to 1.4 seconds for full power recycle. The regular Turbo is rated for 1 second full power recycle. Just recently, three of my packs each started having problems at the same time, which is why I had to get the Turbo SC. For off camera flashes, I usually don't even need to use them anywhere near full power and can usually get by with just the internal AAs, but there are times where you need the external pack. I do very well by charging 3 packs at once while charging my AAs in their own charger (Ansmann Energy 16).

I gave up on AA's two years ago, and bought two Quantum batteries. Love them!

Oh! That's important regarding the black box, thanks.

 

Just looked at the Turbo (again) ... looks great, the price is challenging.

 

Bookmarking this thread to watch the products over the winter ... right now my canon battery packs are doing the job for a decent price and I've learned more about the AA batteries as well.

 

note of little significance: I've been marking my AA batteries to indicate those that are charging slowly (using a sharpie to put a dot on those charging slowly then add a second dot when they get to charging real real slow) and I've been keeping them grouped (put in small baggies, as a group, when not being used) so I can watch the process.

 

So far they are holding up well and it's interesting to watch (ok, so my life isn't all that exciting: I can hear you all laughing!).

 

$500+ for quantum battery is a bit steep right now but looks like a viable alternative ... I have an old one that a friend gave me but it recycles slower than my others so I use it for studio backgrounds and such, it works great; But, my whole set has to match if being used for a wedding so that the light is fast/consistent/dependable/predictable in the heat of the fast pace of some wedding celebrations. Or, at least that's my current thinking.

You can buy used Turbos off ebay and change out the batteries. Look at the following post by our own Bruce Rubenstein. I did exactly as he suggested and have no problems with my old Turbo (someone gave me).

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=005ztB

 

Could be what you need to do with your old Turbo.

Good Stuff!

 

I've got them bookmarked. Old Turbo (sounds like a cartoon character) may need a face lift soon.

I use to store my batteries in the freezer until I talked to a young lady in a camrea store who told me NOT to store batteries or film in the freezer; just in the refrigerator, and to put the battries in a bag.

I use two bags that our fruits and vegetables come in and double wrap them. When I need tehm, I take the batteries out and let them warm up at room temp.

Richard B. California

William:

 

"~If you're still connected to this thread: can you tell me what flash units you use with your black box. "

 

I use them with 580EX and 580EX IIs

 

"~If you end up shooting more than 1000 shots do you have back up black boxes? How are you backing them up (or do you not worry they may be drained by the time the bridal party reaches the alcohol induced strip tease at 1am?) "

 

I've never managed to run them out - however - you can easily make your own if you're worried. Al supplies 2 things (1) The "Black Box" which is just a 6v battery in a polycarbonate box, bought to the outside world via a 4 pin din socket, and (2) a charger. You can easily source the same components to make another box, and you don't need another charger.

 

"~What is the recycle time you observe using the black boxes i.e. how long do you wait between shots so the flash unit is ready again? (I think he says 3 to 3.5 seconds but I'm not sure, lol)."

 

If depends totally on how much power was put into the flash. A full dump takes (off memory) somewhere between 1 & 2 seconds - the same as you'd get from a pristine set of AAs.

 

" I use canon 580ex units with the battery pack attached and get almost instant cycle using pocket wizards. I like this feature so I can use it when needed. Can black box handle that as you've experienced it? I like the black box idea for the off camera units IF it can handle the recycle time I enjoy."

 

As others have pointed out it's not an accelerated pack. The accelerated packs work the flash pretty hard - personally I've never found the need. My 580EX II on 1/16th power can keep up with a 1D3 firing 10 shots in 2.5 seconds - at 1/8th power it only drops a couple of shots - not often I need more than that, especially with good high-ISO performance and the fact that I'm mostly just using fill flash.

 

At the end of the day it's just a big external battery - you could probably power the Canon high voltage packs the same way with a bit of modification (just don't forget the asbestos gloves before handling!).

 

Cheers,

 

Colin

My mother in law insists on keeping her flashlight in the refrigerator because she was told this would preserve the batteries. Guess what? When you pull it out, it's so dim it's like the batteries are dead. It takes an hour or more to come up to full brightness. So consider the effect this would have on the batteries in your cameras/strobes. Not a good idea. When I was in film (movie) school at NYU, the old guy who taught the sound course said he always put brand new alkalines (didn't use rechargeables) in his Nagra recorder every morning when on a shoot, then replaced them again at lunchtime. Maybe $20 worth of batteries a day. But he was damned sure a battery wasn't going to go dead when Merryl Streep or Woody Allen was in mid-sentence. Buy more chargers and own more batteries than you can possibly use.

Your mother was right ... the refrig does help preserve the batteries.

 

The only thing about doing this process is that the batteries need to have time to warm up to be ready to rock.

 

I chuckled when thinking of the flashlight because if I'm in need of a flashlight I generally need Now if not sooner. So, the flashlights, and for that matter, anything you want to run right away is not going to be a good candidate for the refrigerator.

 

The key is "storage" ... refrigerator is a good way to minimize the natural loss of energy in the AA batteries but but but but they need to have time to warm to room temperature and they need to be dry.