converting a digital camera (for better batteries)

sillygoose

neilwoods wrote: »

How many batteries does your camera take though.

Not sure where your going? :huh: but 4 x AA. My only point is I have NIMH's with 2700mah printed on the side that last 30-50 shots, and Duracell 2400mah NIMH's that last 200 - 250 shots. I mentioned Duracell only because of my own experience with them, I am sure many people on here will be able to point out equally good ones too.

Its not a case of buying the best so much but more a case of avoiding the naff!

neilwoods

sillygoose wrote: »

Not sure where your going? :huh: but 4 x AA. My only point is I have NIMH's with 2700mah printed on the side that last 30-50 shots, and Duracell 2400mah NIMH's that last 200 - 250 shots. I mentioned Duracell only because of my own experience with them, I am sure many people on here will be able to point out equally good ones too.

Its not a case of buying the best so much but more a case of avoiding the naff!

Rechargeable's are 1.2v, where as alkaline and lithium are 1.5v. A lot of devises won't work with rechargeable.

As you say though the higher mah are not allways what they seem.

Dave_C_2

brightonman123 wrote: »

I have a compact digital camera, using rechargable AA.. get 30-40 or so shots before need to recharge or put fresh ones in.

What make and model of digital camera is this? How old is it?
30-40 shots on a pair of AAs is very poor. Do you get the same with fresh Duracells?
I ask because maybe it's time to change the camera
Dave

brightonman123

i have 2500 mili amp 'Naomi's (NiMH!), from maplins. not seen any higher ampage ones..

Norman_Castle

i have 2500 mili amp 'Naomi's (NiMH!), from maplins. not seen any higher ampage ones.

What is the output of your charger?. It will be written on it, expressed in milliamps, mA.

Nilrem

Norman_Castle wrote: »

What is the output of your charger?. It will be written on it, expressed in milliamps, mA.

Good question for the op

IIRC a lot of the cheap chargers you get from the likes of Aldi/poundstretchers are little different to the ones that were out with the first rechargables (I'm fairly sure the exact same design of charger as our first Energiser one* is still sold, with a different colour of plastic), or have only got as far as a simple timer (both are pretty useless with modern batteries, given that they were designed to charge batteries with <1/2 of the capacity of modern batteries).

I'm currently using a duracell charger I got from the bargain forums when it was only about a fiver, and a 7day shop one, both are "smart" in that they sense when the batteries are charged/nearly fully charged and swap to a trickle charge, and can show a faulty a battery (usually smart chargers show something like a green LED for a charged battery, red for charging and flashing red for possibly faulty**, more expensive ones sometimes have an LCD readout)


neilwoods
I don't think that's very true of most modern devices, it was certainly the case with older gear (I've got an Atari Lynx that won't even turn on with fully charged high capacity nimhs, and the original gameboys always used to show low power with nicads), but almost all modern gear is designed with rechargeable in mind (especially as a lot of it has to reduce/increase the voltage coming from the batteries to whatever it uses internally anyway***).
I can't remember the last time I found something that didn't work with a decent rechargable battery

*I think it was Energiser, it may have been Uniross (I'm going back at least 20 years).

**Sometimes you get a false positive for a fault, so it's always worth leaving the battery for a while and trying it in a different charging slot.

***IIRC the average digital camera will need internal voltages at something like 1.5v, 3v, and possibly 5v as different chips need different voltages (and efficient step down/step up voltage regulators are very cheap now).

vax2002

Is This a FUJI ?

If so they never cured the battery problem

david39

Why not try the camera on a set of good quality non-rechargables bought from a retailer with a high turnover (fresh stock) and see how long they last.

If they are no better, then it's the camera that is at fault - if they are better, then it is definitely down to the batteries or charger.

I have an old Olympus that uses 4 rechargable AAs and I can agree with one of the posters above who said that the charger you use makes a difference - I found they lasted ages when I used the batteries and charger that came with the camera but the charger that came with one of the sets of batteries I bought as back-ups never got the Olympus batteries to charge fully.

I did not realise that there might be a mismatch with the batteries - just thought the non-Olympus one was a duff charger! Had I realised it, if I used the matched batteries that came with each of the chargers, they might have given longer life before running out.

neilwoods

Nilrem wrote: »

Good question for the op


neilwoods
I don't think that's very true of most modern devices, it was certainly the case with older gear (I've got an Atari Lynx that won't even turn on with fully charged high capacity nimhs, and the original gameboys always used to show low power with nicads), but almost all modern gear is designed with rechargeable in mind (especially as a lot of it has to reduce/increase the voltage coming from the batteries to whatever it uses internally anyway***).
I can't remember the last time I found something that didn't work with a decent rechargable battery

*I think it was Energiser, it may have been Uniross (I'm going back at least 20 years).

**Sometimes you get a false positive for a fault, so it's always worth leaving the battery for a while and trying it in a different charging slot.

***IIRC the average digital camera will need internal voltages at something like 1.5v, 3v, and possibly 5v as different chips need different voltages (and efficient step down/step up voltage regulators are very cheap now).

To an extent you are right, but I keep coming across a lot devices that will work with rechargeable's, when freshly put in, but after about 30 mins usage, they stop or show warning low battery. You would be surprised to how many devices that are still not made with rechargeable's in mind.