Elinchrom Ranger Lithium Battery

Note that Li-Ion batteries should normally not be connected in parallel since you don't want one battery to potentially charge the other battery with the possibility of a very high charge current.

pwm2 wrote in post #16991144
Note that Li-Ion batteries should normally not be connected in parallel since you don't want one battery to potentially charge the other battery with the possibility of a very high charge current.

I believe your wrong in your statement. I check with the battery manufacture and they claimed it was safe as they sell packs already wired that way. They told me which charger to buy and how to wire the charging plugs together, so I could charge both batteries at once as an 8s pack.

don't fry yourself Scott.

abbadon31 wrote in post #16991483
I believe your wrong in your statement. I check with the battery manufacture and they claimed it was safe as they sell packs already wired that way. They told me which charger to buy and how to wire the charging plugs together, so I could charge both batteries at once as an 8s pack.

Remember that they sell packs already wired that way. That means the pack you receive can not have different amounts of voltage in the two sub-packs so there can't be any big internal current between the packs unless one of the sub-packs gets a failure.

But that isn't the same as connecting two cell packs.

Next thing is that when you buy packs, the supervision circuitry is normally adapted for the sold geometry. The supervision chips gets programmed with voltages, currents, temperatures, self-discharge, temperature coefficients etc to match the used cells they are intended to supervise/protect. There are some companies that sell packs that do not have supervision chips or supervision chips with incorrect parameters in them - battery packs that because of this are not as safe as required. Several of the big recalls you have seen after battery fires has been caused by too big production variation in shipped cells so the supervision chips has been too optimistically configured - some weaker cells has been run too hard.

windpig wrote in post #16991601
don't fry yourself Scott.

LOL that's why we contact the manufacture, so that don't happen

pwm2 wrote in post #16991784
Remember that they sell packs already wired that way. That means the pack you receive can not have different amounts of voltage in the two sub-packs so there can't be any big internal current between the packs unless one of the sub-packs gets a failure.

But that isn't the same as connecting two cell packs.

Next thing is that when you buy packs, the supervision circuitry is normally adapted for the sold geometry. The supervision chips gets programmed with voltages, currents, temperatures, self-discharge, temperature coefficients etc to match the used cells they are intended to supervise/protect. There are some companies that sell packs that do not have supervision chips or supervision chips with incorrect parameters in them - battery packs that because of this are not as safe as required. Several of the big recalls you have seen after battery fires has been caused by too big production variation in shipped cells so the supervision chips has been too optimistically configured - some weaker cells has been run too hard.

Each their own
my batteries have protection built with the battery under the shrink wrap.
The nice thing is I'm full insured both health and property and if something happens I'm covered. If I die from it I lived a healthy life.

Anyway - I recommend that you normalize the batteries by connecting a suitable resistor between them before you directly connect them to each other. A too large current pulse in either direction and the supervisor is likely to permanently break away the battery like a fuse.

Hi Folks,
I saw this thread and had to try replacing my tired ranger batteries with modern lithiums. As I'm in Europe I had to find an alternative here so. I bought two batteries with pretty much the same spec as the stark power one you can see the spec sheet here http://files.ev-power.eu …P12V_PCM-Product-Spec.pdf
However when I connected it all up I would get an ER message flash for a second and the pack would turn off.
It works fine in snail mode though so I assume what's happening is the battery isn't providing enough current and then the PCM in the battery is switching it off.
Does anyone know what the peak current draw in a ranger is? I'm wondering now if I replace the PCM inside the battery will that work?
Any help would be much appreciated.

Dreaded ER mode

It may or may not be the battery change. I had this happen with the standard stock battery, $500 US$ later after a new PC board. I hope you're unit isn't toast.

windpig wrote in post #17187960
Dreaded ER mode

It may or may not be the battery change. I had this happen with the standard stock battery, $500 US$ later after a new PC board. I hope you're unit isn't toast.

Ouch!
You scared me there so I just put the lead battery back in and it's working fine. Phew!

Photosteve1 wrote in post #17188013
Ouch!
You scared me there so I just put the lead battery back in and it's working fine. Phew!

Good, I'm glad to hear that. I wasn't trying to alarm you.

BTW, I have to of the Ranger Speed AS packs, so I was able to try the other battery in the bad pack. I was not a happy camper, it was out of warranty by 2 months, it was low mileage. I love the lights, but the QC, customer service and documentation from Elinchrom sucks. Oh, and another thing, I HATE the Skyports with a passion. Absolute junk.

windpig wrote in post #17188074
but the QC, customer service and documentation from Elinchrom sucks. Oh, and another thing, I HATE the Skyports with a passion. Absolute junk.

And thus I am now shooting Jinbei lights. With my Eli softboxes.

1100 ws rock though.

Yeah the sky ports are pants. I got the pocket wizard st4 and the range on that thing is even worse, complete garbage.
I love the lights themselves though, to have that power in a go anywhere pack is great.

Photosteve1 wrote in post #17187794
Hi Folks,
It works fine in snail mode though so I assume what's happening is the battery isn't providing enough current and then the PCM in the battery is switching it off.

Does anyone know what the peak current draw in a ranger is? I'm wondering now if I replace the PCM inside the battery will that work?
Any help would be much appreciated.

Yep, I'd guess that's what is happening as well. According to someone else earlier in this thread the peak current draw of a Ranger is something like 40 or 50 amps, but for a very short duration then it falls off quickly. I'm guessing the battery you selected isn't able to deliver sufficient current to recharge the pack in normal mode.

Have you tried contacting Stark Power to see if they are willing to ship overseas?