DS-125 charging question

Hi, all-

My first post on Wetpixel....let's hope this isn't a silly question!! I recently upgraded from a Canon housing with single YS-90 to an Ikelite housing with dual DS125's. The system is working well so far, though it is a (relative) behemoth that is not so fun to carry through the So Cal surf!

One thing is strange, however - I have yet to achieve three "lights" (the top level of charging) on my strobe battery packs, despite the fact that I have twice left them to charge overnight (18+ hours) with the smart charger - is this just not long enough??

Thanks so much!

Might be a question for Ikelite. I get a full charge in 2 or 3 hours even when discharged to the point that I get the fast flashing light on the charger.

How many times have you charged and discharged the packs? It could be that they haven't been broken in yet, and after a few more uses you will get 3 lights.

Or it could be something else not so good...

Cheers

James

Got 3 lights on mine out of the box.

Question:

Is your "smart" charger the new one or the older one? [The new one plugs directly into the wall, the older one has a plug cord.]

The older smart charger doesn't work with the new battery packs.

there is a chance that the battery isnt making good contact with the strobe head. I'd be surprised by that with a new strobe, but it could happen. Try wiggling the battery on the strobe a bit. You can also tighten up the contact. On the battery, on the female power connectors, use a tiny flathead screwdriver to push the prongs of the connectors toward the center. Just a little bit! if you do them all, they really grab and the battery is hard to get on and off.

If this isn't a simple fix like a bad contact, send it back.

OK, let's see - they are brand new, right out of the box, and there is a charger cord that plugs into the strobe pack on one side and the wall on the other, the signaling light for charge indication is on the plug. This is what came with them... Jim, please don't tell me that this setup is all wrong....how can I go back to one strobe while I await a solution?????? (weeping loudly)

If that isn't it, I'm kind of inclined to think that either (1) I haven't charged them enough or (2) they aren't able to charge enough where I'm plugging them in, because it seems a little odd that BOTH brand new strobes would be defective, you know?

The screwdriver thing sounds a bit scary and like something I could easily mess up. Think I will delay that!

They seem to work fine - I have done three dives with them, and each dive was in excess of 70 minutes.

Thanks a lot for answering so quickly -

Allison

From your description, I think you have the correct charger. Just to confirm, it looks like this:

Yes, that is what I have. So...at least crying is not necessary - for now.

I think I am going to start (as soon as I get home from the stupid conference I'm currently and unenthusiastically attending in landlocked Sacramento) by plugging the batteries in somewhere different on Fri night before we do our 'Nados charter on Saturday. If that doesn't work, it'll be back to the drawing board (or calling Ikelite prior to anything that involves taking a screwdriver to my new strobe....).

Seriously, this is a great forum - thanks so much for your quick replies.

Hi There

Just a thought that since the strobe is new, how many times have you charged and discharged that battery? As with the new Nimh batteries you need up to ten full charges/discharges before they will charge to 100%.

You will know that it has finished charging when the light on the charger starts flashing. I'd say your charger is faulty. Send it back to Ikelite.

I bought a second charger in April and while it worked fine out of the box, after about 10 uses it stopped fully charging the batteries. It was easy for me to confirm because I had no problems charging with the "old" charger (it was only 1 year older). I sent it back to Ikelite and they replaced it no questions asked.

vetdiver,

Make absolutely sure when you plug in the charger cord to the battery pack the LED on the charger stays ON.

Some of the plugs on the charger cord end (commercial type connector) can be bumped loose, and even though the charger is plugged in the conection to the battery pack is lost

I've never seen the newest DS125 NiMH packs requiring any 10 times "ramp up" to achieve full charge capacity.

Just thinking out loud......

dhaas

OK, I am still at a silly conference away from my stuff right now and can only think back to the memory of my strobes from Monday's Dawn Patrol dive, but I just have to reiterate this....

I have 2 strobes. Brand new. With brand new chargers. Right outta their respective boxes. Both doing the same exact thing. I hate to speculate, since I have not used Ikelite strobes until now, but...while I am admittedly not always the luckiest girl in the world, I have a hard time believing that I just happened to get 2 faulty strobes and/or chargers at once.

(Of course, now that I said that, the statistical likelihood of this being the case has doubled.)

So - I am going to go home in 20 short hours, jiggle cords around, plug batteries into a different outlet that is tried and tested with previous camera-related equipment....and then I will repost. If I can get them to last through 3 dives on my Sat charter, I will not be so worried about what indicator light is on, frankly!

The light on the charger is flashing when I take them off, by the way.

Thanks again! Excellent diving and photos to all of you this weekend....

...while I am admittedly not always the luckiest girl in the world, I have a hard time believing that I just happened to get 2 faulty strobes and/or chargers at once.

 

(Of course, now that I said that, the statistical likelihood of this being the case has doubled.)

Actually I've found failures run in packs. I bought 4 computer cases with integrated power supplies once (these are very narrow, 'desktop' cases styled to look like stereo equipment and fit in media racks, hence they have custom form factor power supplies) and all FOUR had faulty power supplies. The case OEM got a bad run from his PSU vendor.

Basically on things like chargers and batteries you expect either infant mortality (no grisly pun intended - that is indeed the term our reliability engineers at work use) or life up to and beyond the MTBF (mean time between failure) calculations.

Not that I'm adding anything constructive about the actual issue at hand, as I know nothing about it (haven't been able to afford my own DS125's yet!) but didn't want you to be too quick to rule out equipment failure just because it was both of them.

I've seen this happen sometimes with my DS-125 strobes. At home an overnight charge usually gives me three lights, but not always. But when in other locations and charging them up I sometimes only get two lights to come up. This happens with multiple battery packs. I have no idea why and it doesn't usually impact the number of images I can take. My one speculation is that there might be some issue with the current going into the charger (thrid-world, older US and live-aboard wiring might not be up to spec), but since it's sending out DC who knows.

I would think that if you get enough output for the number of images you take on a dive (or dives) it ought not to be a problem. I usually rotate batteries and charge after two dives so it's rare for me to run the batteries down.

Rinjani

vetdiver,

One thing I always do with my 125's is to let the battery 'cool down' after the first charging for a few hours and then plug it back in.

I have one charger and two strobes, so I normally charge one until the light starts blinking. Then I unplug it and charge the second one. After the second one stars blinking I move the charger back to the first, and it will take around 30 minutes until it starts blinking again.

I don't think Ikelite mentions this method anywhere, but it's something that is in one of my NiMH torch manuals.

When I do this I always get 3 lights.

You should keep in mind that this type of battery does suffer from "memory-effect" when it comes to charging and discharging the batteries. If you have repeated partial discharge the battery may fail to fully charge.

Here is a link to wikipedia and a nice article on NiMH batteries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_metal_hydride_battery

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_Effect

I hope this helps.

Best wishes.

Michael

Well, I've been using the strobes 2-4 times a week, multiple 2-dive days and once for a 3 dive day, and there have been no issues at all. I am not sure what the deal is with the three lights (lack thereof) thing, but it doesn't seem to be affecting the strobe performance.

We've been out of the water for a few days for the fires here, maybe I'll see 3 lights next time I take them out since they've had a good chance to cool down...

Now I am off to consider other things...like, at what point does it become an irresistible idea for me to spring for a Canon 40D and all accessories, BAM, at once...kinda like ripping off a band-aid?????

Hmmmm.

Hi

I have just got back from a 4 dive a day 4 day liveaboard and I didnt charge the battery once, last dive I got it down to 1 light, about 150 or so pics. I have had the strobe for 4 months now and I have never got 3 lights when fully charged. But like you said I saw no reduction in performance and was my concern. Now I just charge and go. I'm off for a week of diving on monday so I will get to test again and will let you know when i get back.

could it be that just that third led light is broken ?