Thanks for that. I didn't know I was supposed to check the intensity. It seemed
ok the day before, but got left on overnight, which must have finished it off.
I doubt that battery had more than 100 hours of use, including a few times left
on overnight. It was in the car and the temperature got down to about 2
degrees, don't know if that makes a difference. The battery might have come
good if I'd let it warm up a bit.
I'll have to work on remembering to turn it off. 150 hours is a lot, but
getting left on would soon eat into that.
I'm using it with a PCM-M10, which only provides 3V plug in power. Would that
work with this microphone?
Peter Shute
From:
On Behalf Of Mitch Hill
Sent: Monday, 22 August 2011 2:20 AM
To:
Subject: Re: [Nature Recordists] ME66/K6 battery level indication
On 8/21/2011 10:23 AM, Peter Shute wrote:
> It flashes once when I turn it on, and I'm guessing this is to indicate that
> the battery is ok. Is this correct?
>
> If that's correct, how do I know how much life is left?
>
> And if the light doesn't flash, does that necessarily mean the microphone is
> now dead? Or can it still function for a while longer once the battery level
> is low enough that it doesn't flash?
>
Hi Peter,
If there is one flaw with the ME/K6 series microphones, it is the lack
of technical/operating information from Sennheiser.
Yes, the LED only flashes when you turn the battery switch on and the
intensity of this LED flash is supposedly an indication of the battery
level, not a very accurate indicator I suspect, however the good news
is the AA battery lasts so long with the K6 module, trying to interpret
the LED indicator is really not an issue as typically I find battery
life is months, not hours or days. Unfortunately, there is no good way
to tell how much battery life remains accurately using the LED, It is
basically a go/no go indicator...
What I do is remove the K6 battery after several months of use and check
it with a digital multimeter and as long as it is above 1 volt DC, the
LED still flashes, I put the battery back and keep using it. So far I've
not had one go dead in the field. I suspect Sennheiser's battery life
estimation of 150 hours is very conservative, I often run my ME66/K6 for
several days at a time with no indication of degraded battery condition.
Another factor that can work in your favor extending the K6 internal
battery life, if you have a recorder or a preamp that supplies Phantom
power and you are operating from an unlimited DC supply of some sort
such as a car battery (I often use a deep cycle marine battery with a
SOLAR charger) , simply do not turn the K6 battery switch on, the switch
only controls the battery, the microphone is always active and will use
phantom power when it is available. I often use a SD "302"mix/pre
powered by a large external battery pack for power, and I set the SD
302 Phantom power at the 12VDC level option rather than 48 VDC level and
the ME66/K6 microphones work well at this setting regardless of where
the K6 switch is set. This is a great setup as it avoids draining the
AA batteries in the mics, recorder, and preamps for lengthy extended
sessions.
-- --
Mitch Hill
(Sent from HP DV6T)
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