5 days to go

[piranha]

external battery pack for my digicam, collected parts. actually it will take 7 batteries (8.4V). this is a dirt-cheap setup, and geared towards using what i already have, rather than going for the MOST POWER option.

if i went for optimizing power, i'd use a honking lead-acid battery. but i have oodles of NIMH batteries in size AA, because all my portable electronics run on those. the camera's internal battery outputs a meager 650 Ah, and it doesn't last very long even if i use energy saving methods (turn the LCD screen off, don't use the flash). which is no big problem when i am near a socket to plug in the fast charger, but that won't be possible much during the bus ride, nor when exploring montréal. a second battery like this costs at least C$50, which would give me nothing more than another puny battery. with the AA batteries i have, i can boost the output from 1200 up to 2300 Ah (depending on which set i use), which should last me a good deal longer. and i have more than one set of batteries, so that extends it even more.

cost of parts: battery holder @ 2.99, coax plug @ 1.75, 9V snap connector @ 1.00 for a total of C$4.75. am cannibalizing an old phone cord for the wire. can't beat that.

a little soldering, and tomorrow a usage test, and i'm hopefully be all set. i would have bought a project box because i don't want the pack to float around loose in my bag, but the paramour suggested that a simple drawstring bag would do -- indeed it would.

Comments

[brooksmoses]

Yay, indeed! One of my very favorite features on my digital camera is that it runs off standard AA batteries. Which meant that, when the rechargeables went dead in the middle of Yosemite two weeks ago, I went to the camp supply store and bought more. For five dollars.

I've had it so long that I'd nearly forgotten that it wasn't normal. I don't think I could go back to a camera that used non-commodity batteries, without being really annoyed by it. So it's nice to know that it's not too difficult to do a retrofit like this -- I may have to do that, because the greens on this camera are really starting to get desaturated, and a fairly good bit of what I want to photograph is "see how bright this green is!"

[mayaknife.livejournal.com]

Yeah, same here. One night in LA my camera batteries died and I didn't have a recharger with me. So I popped the two double-A's out of the television remote and used those for the rest of the night.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

yeah, ideally i would have wanted my camera to use standard batteries too, but the camera i wanted that was on sale when i had the money didn't offer that feature, and the next one i'll want to buy won't either; the prosumer corner of the market often doesn't.

retrofitting battery packs is something just about everyone who takes a huge number of photographs does, it seems -- there are a plethora of personal websites with homebuilt battery packs (complete with charging systems, *heh*), and there are even aftermarket packs now, to simply be able to go for longer without carting lots of single batteries around.

i've wanted to do this for ages; it's great to finally get around to it.

and you, you should post more pictures! :) yosemite!!!