Dan Burnap
October 20th, 2009, 04:17 AM
I bought a Microbeam 128 with a panasonic battery mount a while back and was impressed with it. I have left my DVX and DVC for the HMC150 and had lots of batteries I could utilise with this light.
I was thus impressed I bought a Microbeam 256 for the extra output. I was expecting about half the run time than the 128 model of course but what I also got I wasnt so pleased with. With a high capacity batteriy, after the light had been on continuously for more than about 30 minutes, if you switched it off and then again a few minutes or seconds after it would take two or more flicks of the switch to light back up again..
I contacted Microbeam who said they had no other reports of this problem and sent me another light quickly. This light had the same issue accept it took two flicks of the switch to light up from cold and it had much shorter run times. I started to think my batteries may be iffy so I bought some new ones and ran some tests.
To sum up:
Both lights tested with the same batteries had drastically different running times. The second light much shorter and below what I would hae expected relative to the 128 model.
Both lights needed repeated flicks of the on \ off switch to light up again after being switched off when hot. (they get hot after running for some time)
Both lights had up to double the run time and reduced amount of repeated switch flicking when they were left running in front of a desk fan.
I emailed PrompterPeople with all my findings and they offered me a refund.
Anyway, I'd like to know if anyone other owners have had similiar problems...
During my contact with PrompterPeople they did add on their website that the 256 models needs batteries about 3400mAh (mine are). In the last few days they have removed the Microbeam models from their website.
I was thus impressed I bought a Microbeam 256 for the extra output. I was expecting about half the run time than the 128 model of course but what I also got I wasnt so pleased with. With a high capacity batteriy, after the light had been on continuously for more than about 30 minutes, if you switched it off and then again a few minutes or seconds after it would take two or more flicks of the switch to light back up again..
I contacted Microbeam who said they had no other reports of this problem and sent me another light quickly. This light had the same issue accept it took two flicks of the switch to light up from cold and it had much shorter run times. I started to think my batteries may be iffy so I bought some new ones and ran some tests.
To sum up:
Both lights tested with the same batteries had drastically different running times. The second light much shorter and below what I would hae expected relative to the 128 model.
Both lights needed repeated flicks of the on \ off switch to light up again after being switched off when hot. (they get hot after running for some time)
Both lights had up to double the run time and reduced amount of repeated switch flicking when they were left running in front of a desk fan.
I emailed PrompterPeople with all my findings and they offered me a refund.
Anyway, I'd like to know if anyone other owners have had similiar problems...
During my contact with PrompterPeople they did add on their website that the 256 models needs batteries about 3400mAh (mine are). In the last few days they have removed the Microbeam models from their website.