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Battery usage management of the VG on the A99

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Michael Fritzen

Michael Fritzen

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Hi,

owning the A99 now shortly over 2 years and using the camera mostly with the VG I'm noticing that the batteries seem to suffer from the less than ideal power usage management of the VG. The batteries take more and more time for recharging and my understanding is that this is related to the fact that the VG effectively depletes batteries to zero before it swaps to next units. AFAIK depleting affects capacity and life span of Li-ion batteries. I know, I could remove a battery when it gets down to 20-30% but this isn't always practical when in the middle of an event (sports) when one of the main reasons for using the VG is to have enough power and no hassle with the exchange of batteries.

The VG over the time got such a sophisticated device with "intelligent" power management, but I would like to see an upgrade for future models (perhaps FW upgradeable) which allows the user to select a power level for when the automatic change to the next battery would happen. So it would be a user's choice whether he/she would go for maximum power (going down to zero) or instead for a residual power level which would favor the life span (ideally with an "overrun button" for liberation of the residual power if needed in an emergency).

In all former cams w/o VG (KM7D, A100, A700, A850) I've never experienced a reduction of battery capacity or extension of the recharge time over the period I owned those. Your experiences, thoughts? Hoping Sony takes note of this.
 
I own an A900/VG9 setup since new, c/w the original batteries. I have not experienced your battery issues and I attribute that to using a 3 battery rotation system since new. I keep 2 bats in the VG9 of course and bat.#3 fully charged in charger (or bag). Each battery gets numbered, 1 thru 3 for tracking. As the VG #1 battery drains I move it to the charger and move the VG#2 battery to the VG#1 slot and the fresh fully charged #3 battery to the VG#2 slot, repeat as required in the same sequence. (BTW, the two VG9 battery carriage slots are also numbered) This way I'm always assured of one fully charged bat in the VG, another fully charged spare and maximise the batteries serviceable lifespan.

Works for me!

Stv

--
Simplify_balancE_eXclude
http://stv.smugmug.com/
 
Last edited:
Hi,

well that's what I'm also doing. Since the VG units would be used more frequently because I hardly remove the VG from the body I'm exchanging them from time to time with the body unit. I'm not sure how the VG9 uses the batteries if two units are in place. Are they used in parallel or in sequence? In the A99's VG they are used in sequence, starting (automatically) with the usage of the one with the lowest power level, then the 2nd VG unit and last the body unit. This is very good for maximizing the time one has the camera with power supply before need to swap batteries physically. But just this type of power management seems to reduce the life span / possible number of cycles.
 
First off, no battery lasts forever and they lose capacity as they age so I think what you are seeing is pretty much normal. I rarely discharge one of the grip batteries on a normal shoot and I then charge before using again. High temps and over voltage are killers for Li-ion batteries.

BTW, I have batteries for my R1 that are very old but they still work quite well.
 
It uses the lowest charged in the grip first, then the other grip and finally the one in body.
 
Well it may be that the higher power consumption of the A99 in comparison to all my previous cams means a significant higher amount of recharge cycles. It's just that in all previous cams I didn't notice drops in capacity or increase in recharge time and I started to wonder about possible reasons.
 
busch said:
It uses the lowest charged in the grip first, then the other grip and finally the one in body.
Click to expand...
My question was about the VG9 / A900 combination used by Stv. As far as I remember this combo hadn't a battery in body when VG was used and batteries were used in parallel but I'm not sure about this.
 
The batteries in the a90 were not used in parallel but just like the do in the s99... lowest power first.

Michael Fritzen said:
busch said:
It uses the lowest charged in the grip first, then the other grip and finally the one in body.
Click to expand...
My question was about the VG9 / A900 combination used by Stv. As far as I remember this combo hadn't a battery in body when VG was used and batteries were used in parallel but I'm not sure about this.

--
Cheers,
Michael Fritzen
Click to expand...
 
Curtis Khan said:
The batteries in the a90 were not used in parallel but just like the do in the s99... lowest power first.
Click to expand...
Ah. Ok. So no essentially different power management. Then I guess that VG9/A900 would also run the first battery completely down before switching over to No 2. If so what I'm experiencing is probably normal ageing of my batteries - all original and bought on the same day so still wondering about the differences but my exchange control possibly failed. :-(
 
Don't these batteries have circuitry to prevent the cells discharging completely? It shouldn't matter if the indicator shows 0%, the output is just shut off when a certain cell voltage is reached. (Although if left in this state for a long time, the cells could further self-discharge).
 
Denis247 said:
Don't these batteries have circuitry to prevent the cells discharging completely? It shouldn't matter if the indicator shows 0%, the output is just shut off when a certain cell voltage is reached. (Although if left in this state for a long time, the cells could further self-discharge).
Click to expand...
Well at least they would communicate with the VG so its electronics know when to switch over to the next unit. If I'd let an exhausted cell after a shot in the VG then I'd see a possible reason for deep discharge But back from a shooting at least the VG cells are immediatlely recharged (exchange VG - body from time to time).
 
Correct. They work in the same manner. Actually, all the cameras I have with original grips work this way. the Minolta 7D, a700, a300, a900, a77ii and the a99. The oly one that worked parallel was an a500 with an aftermarket grip.
Michael Fritzen said:
Curtis Khan said:
The batteries in the a90 were not used in parallel but just like the do in the s99... lowest power first.
Click to expand...
Ah. Ok. So no essentially different power management. Then I guess that VG9/A900 would also run the first battery completely down before switching over to No 2. If so what I'm experiencing is probably normal ageing of my batteries - all original and bought on the same day so still wondering about the differences but my exchange control possibly failed. :-(

--
Cheers,
Michael Fritzen
Click to expand...
 
Michael Fritzen said:
Hi,

owning the A99 now shortly over 2 years and using the camera mostly with the VG I'm noticing that the batteries seem to suffer from the less than ideal power usage management of the VG. The batteries take more and more time for recharging and my understanding is that this is related to the fact that the VG effectively depletes batteries to zero before it swaps to next units. AFAIK depleting affects capacity and life span of Li-ion batteries. I know, I could remove a battery when it gets down to 20-30% but this isn't always practical when in the middle of an event (sports) when one of the main reasons for using the VG is to have enough power and no hassle with the exchange of batteries.

The VG over the time got such a sophisticated device with "intelligent" power management, but I would like to see an upgrade for future models (perhaps FW upgradeable) which allows the user to select a power level for when the automatic change to the next battery would happen. So it would be a user's choice whether he/she would go for maximum power (going down to zero) or instead for a residual power level which would favor the life span (ideally with an "overrun button" for liberation of the residual power if needed in an emergency).

In all former cams w/o VG (KM7D, A100, A700, A850) I've never experienced a reduction of battery capacity or extension of the recharge time over the period I owned those. Your experiences, thoughts? Hoping Sony takes note of this.
Click to expand...
 
Edward Sargent said:
... All seem to behave about the same but I must admit I have not really monitored them, if one goes dead I take it out and charge it (2 yesterday).
Click to expand...
What has drawn my attention was the fact that it's taking more and more time for the orange light on the charger to switch off such indicating charge completed. After the last shooting on saturday I put one battery to recharge at about 7:30pm that day and yesterday evening (more than 24h later) the light was still on. I decided to continue just to see if it completes the charge and today morning this had happened. Now I'm wondering whether some special care in future usage so that charge doesn't drop below 30-40% is able to slow down degeneration (or even better: improve things) or if this is a one-way road.
 
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