I had my first extremely frustrating Tekkeon battery failure on Sunday 10/7 at MMW. At the time I was running Schoeps mk5 cards->kc-5->cmc6xt->sx-m2->mme->744t to channels 3/4 and mk21->kc-5->cmc6->744t to channels 1/2. The mk5 pair was supposed to be the 'go to' capture with the mk21 pair as the "backup" or "fuck it lets see how it sounds" source.
I was using what appeared to be a fully charged Tekkeon 3450i to power my Mini-Me. This was a relatively short two set 60-65 minutes per set show, nothing major. I powered up the two tekkeons, one running a SX-M2 and 1 running the MME, at about 7:15 and the band came on sharply at 7:30 playing a short 63 minute or so set.
At set break I left everything running as I was expecting a short show and never had any close calls with the tekkeons whatsoever. Set break was 30 minutes, tops. Anyway, mid second set about 32 minutes into the set I looked down and noticed that channels 3/4 in the 744T were flat but channels 1/2 were still operating fine. At this point I quickly noticed that the MME was dead and the battery powering the unit was showing no life either. At this point I shut off the battery and turned it back on immediately -> nothing happened. Next, I shut off the apogee and battery and checked the battery meter which showed a near full charge (1 of the 6 or so power lights were not illuminated, indicating a near full charge). Next, I powered on the battery, set the voltage, and re-fired up the MME and all looked fine, levels returned and everything is ok. Back to enjoying the show.
3-5 minutes later I look down and channels 3/4 are dead again. At this point, since the battery meters were still reading a near full charge, I decided to unplug the battery, power down the MME and let the battery breath as it was hot as hell next to the other 3450i in the gear bag. Maybe 3-5 minutes later I plugged the battery in again and went through the same process where the battery worked for a few minutes then died. At this point I gave up but wasn't too upset since I had the backup mk21s running in the 1/2.
Fast forward 12 hours later, I get back home from Bethel and begin working on the mk21 source. Sound is decent, but the mk5 is definitely better. I have set 1 w/ the mk5s so no big deal. In listening to set 2 of the mk21s source I noticed that each time the tekkeon lost power or was restarted the 744T introduced brief dropouts on the mk21 source in channels 1/2. In total there may be about 6-8 dropouts from 1-3 seconds on my mk21 set 2 source, and a 32 minute mk5 source. I was running AES->BNC from the MME->744T recording to a poly 24/96 wav file.
Question: Why would I get dropouts on channels 1/2 in the above scenario?? I'm thinking back to the DAT days and can think of several possible scenarios here, but would prefer definitive info as opposed my own speculation.
Question: If I was recording to 4 mono wav files would these dropouts on 1/2 still be there?
Also, FWIW when I got home from Bethel yesterday I charged up everything and tested the life of the MME on this same fully charged Tekkeon and it lasted only 3 hrs. Suffice it to say this Tekkeon is no longer reliable for my needs and it's only 7 months old tops, used probably 50 times. I'm not pleased with learning this either and since I didn't register this unit with Tekkeon for warranty I'm now likely out ~$100 on a new battery.
Question: Anyone have Tekkeons failing to hold an adequate charge after about 75-100 hours of use?? Perhaps I forgot to turn this one off after the last show I taped draining it completely, which may have impacted its useful life.
So, for all you MMW fans, I was the only open taper at the 10/7 show in Bethel. Someone sitting behind me was running a stealth rig with internal mics (I believe) but I didn't get his info for a patch source since I didn't think I'd need it. I won't be posting this recording - nothing special anyway other than a 17 minute Doppler...all the rest of the show was heard at the preceeding shows.