25Nov Watson Duo LCD Charger battery plates
Several of you were asking about the charger plates for the Watson Duo LCD charger I wrote about last week. Here we have a few different flavors, they look the same from the front of the box, but each contains a different type of battery plate.
On the left we have Canon BP-900 plate, in the middle a LP-E6 charger plate, and on the right a Sony NP-F970 battery plate. All 3 of them slide easily into the charger while fitting snug on the back of their respective batteries. The Sony plate seems to attach itself pretty well to the battery and does require you to put a thumb on the plate while inserting and removing the battery from the charger.
In this case I have a BP-900 and Sony NP-F970 battery plugged into the Watson Duo LCD charger at the same time. Both batteries were able to charge to capacity without a problem. You can charge a single battery of any type, two batteries of any type, or two batteries of the same type without an issue.
As for charge times, the Watson Duo LCD charger seems to charge faster than the Dual charger that comes with the Ninja 2 when working with Sony NP-F970 batteries, but I haven’t actually taken the time to run down two batteries and time the recharge. Usually the Ninja 2’s charger will take about 4 hours to 5 hours to charge up the batteries, while the Watson seems to get it done somewhere closer to 3 and half. Again, I haven’t used a timer on this so I can’t say for sure.
A few of you also reported humming and other high pitch noises coming from the Pearstone Duo charger (cheaper version of the Watson). After a week of use I haven’t had any noise or humming issues coming from the Watson Duo LCD charger, this could be why it’s on the higher end of the charger price range. I’ll post a full review once I’ve had a little more time to spend with it.
December 1st, 2013 at 5:06 am
Thank you so much for posting both this and the original post about the dual charger! I use LP-E6’s then assorted Sony NP-F’s for LED’s and also for a Sony VX2100 I still film BMX with. This can sit permanently on my desk, charging which ever battery I please on ONE CHARGER and keep the original chargers to go with the cameras(when needed). I now have a LP-E6 Watson and a NP-F plate sitting in my amazon wishlist ready for purchase, cheers DeeJay!
January 20th, 2014 at 8:33 pm
Hi DeeJay,
First, thanks for sharing all that you do. I’ve silently stalked you for years and have garnered many tips and ideas from you over that time. I was wondering on your NP-970 batteries, when you charge them, how reliable do you feel the power readings are? I have a different style charger that I purchased off Ebay a few months ago and it works to charge the batteries, it’s just the readout doesn’t seem to be very accurate. I’ll charge a battery until it shows 100%, taken the battery off the charger, then immediately replaced it on the charger. The reading will go from 100% down to 94% or 96%. It will then charge back up to 100% after about 30 minutes and be back at 100%. Only to then take it off the charger, replace it and find the reading somewhere back in the 90’s. If I do this a few times, it will usually read a consistent 100%, but I feel its a fault in the design that it does this. I’m wondering if your batteries charge to a true 100% using your dual unit or if you get a similar drop in reading. Thank you!
January 20th, 2014 at 10:04 pm
Often times battery chargers simply base their reading on a voltage measurement and current flow to the battery. While a charger is feeding a battery it’s trying to maintain a given voltage level by applying current flow the formula is E=IR. As the battery finishes it’s charge the current requirements to maintain a given voltage start to drop, until there is little or no current flow to the battery, that’s the point at which the battery charger says 100%. When you take a battery off of a charger there is a little bit of internal settling (it’s actually more complex than that) and the voltage of the battery balances out at some level below what the charger would call 100%. Does this mean the battery isn’t fully charged? The answer is not really.
Any chargeable battery will drop a small amount when removed from a charger. After all a battery is simply a chemical device, and chemicals do what they do (again it’s actually more complex than that). Depending on the chargers internal voltage threshold for what it calls charged, the the voltage drop seen when a battery is removed from a charger can be enough to indicate something in the 90% range. That doesn’t mean your battery charger is bad, it just means that they designed the 100% indication without any, or a very small margin for error. So if your battery charger doesn’t see an exact voltage value, than your battery isn’t fully chargers. This is regardless of the fact that your battery will often sluff off a few millivolts once you take it off the charger.
If the battery drops by .6 volts after it is removed from the charger and the full charge is supposed to be 7.2 volts, your charge might see the battery as either 91% or 92% charged depending on the accuracy of the internal voltmeter and the tolerance for a 100% measurement. From the batteries perspective it’s basically fully charged, sure you can put it on the charger a few more times to try and get it back up to 100%, but the battery’s natural tendency is to drift down slightly after charging. It’s just the way batteries work (again it’s actually more complex than that), so if you put a battery back on and it indicates somewhere in the high 90’s you are probably ok. Consider that reading to be an approximate measurement, round up and down if that helps. In the low 20% range, it needs a charge, in the high 90% range you’re good to go.
Hope that helps, Thanks for silently stalking the site.
January 20th, 2014 at 10:12 pm
On a side note, I noticed you’re from Las Vegas. Any interest in helping me shoot NAB this year? Free tickets to NAB and motel room at the circus circus.
April 3rd, 2014 at 12:43 am
Deejay! I just saw you replied, this is rather late in the game, but I would love to help you in any way I can at NAB this year. Please email me when you have a moment.
April 15th, 2014 at 8:19 pm
B&H lists the Watson Duo Charger several times with different battery plates for $71. But they also list a Watson Duo Charger for BN-VF8 batteries for $44. What’s the difference between the two? They look the same, and they’re both made by Watson. They both say that they accept other battery plates. What gives? Will this charger work with an EN-EL20 plate?
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search/mode/edu?Ntt=Watson+Duo+Charger&N=0&InitialSearch=yes&sts=ma&Top+Nav-Search=
Thanks!
April 16th, 2014 at 5:51 pm
The only difference is the plates. If you can find the plates you need in stock go with the cheaper unit and spend $5 or so on the plates. A number of people have reported the LP-E6 plates as well as some others being out of stock and taking up to 30 days to ship.