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PAG CHARGER USER REVIEW
PAG MICROCHARGER There is always room for lighter, cleverer power options like PAG’s Microcharger – as long as you have the time WORDS ADAM GARSTONE
life on the planet – which is unlikely to be covered by the warranty or by the production insurance – so best to stick with the advice. There is the ubiquitous flashing LED to let you know how the charge is going – constant red means no connection, orange flashing means charging, constant green is fully charged and so on. I tested the unit with a couple of PAG’s own excellent PL96 li-ion batteries – these are unrestricted for airline carry-on (and come with the appropriate certification), are solidly build and reliable. Charge times were as expected, and we’re all still alive, so I call that a result. As far as I know there is no other product quite like the Microcharger. With a list price of £161 plus VAT (under £150 ‘street’ price), I can foresee keeping one in the car, for a quick top-up between locations, and/ or having one always in the bag.
simultaneously (though PAG recommends sticking to a maximum of four). The Microcharger charges at a maximum of 1.5A – roughly half the rate of the full-sized units – taking four hours to charge a completely exhausted 96Wh battery. This increases to about ten hours via USB. Unsurprisingly, charging two 96Wh batteries takes eight hours, three takes 12 hours – you get the picture. There is a Gold mount version of the Microcharger available, and both will handle other manufacturers’ batteries. POWER ON In use, the Microcharger is very simple. There is a caveat, stated very clearly and repeatedly in the documentation, that the unit must be powered on before connecting to the battery. I presume, given the severity of the warning, that failing to do this results in an explosion of sufficient intensity to ignite the Earth’s atmosphere, extinguishing all
very location, every set has a quiet corner, or a table somewhere, with a bank of full-sized battery chargers lined up – little LEDs blinking in the half-light. V- and Gold mount chargers are big though, and there are often times when it would be handy to have a small, flexible charger available – especially for that shoot on the 18th floor of the building with the broken lift. PAG has a groovy little charger for its battery system that fits this need perfectly. The PAG 9713V Microcharger is smaller than a pack of cards, but packs a host of features into its tiny frame. It can be powered from a supplied, auto-ranging ‘wall wart’ style mains adapter, or with a 12V car adapter, or even over USB (the USB socket needs to be able to provide at least 2A). There is a kit available which includes all these options. The unit will charge up to eight V-Mount PAGLink batteries
IMAGES Time rich, battery poor? Then let us introduce the PAG 9713V Microcharger, and its range of power options.
PAG HAS A GROOVY LITTLE CHARGER FOR THAT FITS THIS NEED PERFECTLY
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JULY 2018 DEFINITION
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