Topic: Wal-Mart Battery - field problems

[gmm6797]

Got to a show on Friday night, plugged in my Wal-Mart battery to my pre-amp... and nada... no power, no juice, nothing when i hit the test button.

When I get home, I plug it into the wall adapter for a mili-second, and the levels on the battery go back to 100% full.

Anyone know what causes this? How to fix it in the field?

Any help or thoughts are appreciated.

Thanks

[Howell]

This also happened to me earlier in the summer, same symptoms and same fix.   Kind of ironic that it was gmm6797 that came through with a spare battery for me that night    My guess is there is some kind of magnetic force field around SPAC that is messing with the batteries

[dnsacks]

I believe these lithium ion batteries have overload/short protection that isn't reset until you plug 'em back into a charger.

Darrin

[spyder9]

Its happened to me too.  I found connecting the battery first to the preamp, then turn on the preamp, avoids this issue.  I used the Walmart to juice both my UA5 and JB3.  Can' tell you how many times I freaked when it happened to me at a show.  I'm sure Timbo (raoulduke) will share his expereince with these batteries when we were at Black Crowes NYE this year.

[gmm6797]

I found connecting the battery first to the preamp, then turn on the preamp, avoids this issue.

Dan - I dont follow the plugging/powering order.... I always plug in the cable to the battery, then the other end of the cable to my preamp, then turn the preamp on...

I wish I could make this happen @ home to do some playing/testing, but I dont know how I made the breaker "trip" in the 1st place   

[gmm6797]

May be Ill return to bringing extra AA batteries for my pre-amp... wont add too much weight to my gear bag.

A very scary NYE run story from a gear perspective! 

[tonyvt]

The same thing happened to me at Greyfox in 2005 and then at a Wilco show at the Memorial Auditorium. Needless to say I no longer trust this battery and no longer use it.

[coloartist]

I have seen this happen to somebody else I was with. It is a short protection in the battery for sure. As they said above it just needs to be plugged in to a wall socket with the charger. I always carry a few extras just in case, but it has never happened to me.

It is definately not from starting the V3 with Phantom on. I do that every time I have used them.

I would think there is a short in the power cable.

[gmm6797]

Does anyone think an in-line fuse in the cable might help? 

Just trying to come up with an idea that we can more easily work with in the field

[whatboutbob]

ooh...i'm pretty sure i know what causes this...forgive my non-technical description...but its caused by the connector shorting out the battery when you plug it in.  Duh you say.  But I found after trial and error that the connectors have varying coverage of "rubber"(?) on the tips.  The connectors with less rubber wrapping around into the inside of the tip shorted out constantly.  I had to go through and try about 30 different connectors (at the store) before I found one with good rubber coverage that I couldn't short the battery out with (a bunch of them would only short the battery maybe 10% of the time).

Apologies for not mentioning it earlier but I didn't bother cos i thought I was the only one who didn't have access to ratshack and was therefore using 'dodgy' connectors from my local store.  Hope this hopes y'all out.

[gmm6797]

Apologies for not mentioning it earlier but I didn't bother cos i thought I was the only one who didn't have access to ratshack and was therefore using 'dodgy' connectors from my local store.  Hope this hopes y'all out.

Not to throw this off, but, my connectors and cable are ShitShack and I still get the shorts 

[whatboutbob]

Apologies for not mentioning it earlier but I didn't bother cos i thought I was the only one who didn't have access to ratshack and was therefore using 'dodgy' connectors from my local store.  Hope this hopes y'all out.

Not to throw this off, but, my connectors and cable are ShitShack and I still get the shorts 

I previously just assumed that ratshack connectors were ok cos I'd never heard anything against 'em...i take that assumption back now.  It still sounds very much like what I've experienced.

[gmm6797]

I previously just assumed that ratshack connectors were ok cos I'd never heard anything against 'em...i take that assumption back now.  It still sounds very much like what I've experienced.

It could be user error, but may be I got lucky for 4 months and then 2 shows in a row with problems... never said i knew all LOL

[willndmb]

bring the wall charger with you to the show
that way if you have a prob, you can find a plug to reset it
almost every venue willhave a plug somewhere you can get for 1 sec

[it-goes-to-eleven]

My wally charger puts out 12v.  I wonder if you could reset the breaker using a regular 9v?  That way you'd just need a 9v to wally input cord instead of the a/c charger.