- Tired to drag a bagful of batteries with you, while going out and taking pictures with your digital camera?
- Tired to change batteries constantly?
- Did that "once in a life time" photo opportunity pass you, because those damn batteries went empty during the critical moment?
- Don't worry, your troubles are over, the magnificent dryfit battery is here and it wont cost you too much, will last at least six hours of continuous use, is easy to carry around as it only weights 0,5 kilos and you can recharge it when you get home! The only downside is that you need to construct it by yourself...
- Ok, there was the TV-shop imitation and let's get serious. I just don't know anything more frustrating than the ordinary batteries which you are suppose to use with digital cameras. Yeah, the manufacturer promises that these great batteries will last many hours. We all know that's not the case. Usually within 45 minutes the batteries are dead and you need to load another set of those into your camera and the time is even less if you use photo flash. What a nice way to spend a day in nature or in abandoned building...loading constantly more batteries into the camera... So with that in my mind, I thought to share a nice tip how to avoid that show. The answer is dryfit battery. I've been using one dryfit battery for a year now and I have not regretted it once. In practice it gives you six hours of photographing time and once you get home you can recharge it and it lasts again six hours. The manufacturer for these batteries gives it a life time of six years and it can hold the charge for two years. Even if you store it, the battery will remain functional for sixteen months, with or without a charge.
- The two things you need to do before ordering the supplies and constructing the connection between the battery and camera is to check the voltage your camera uses. Most of the cameras use 6 voltage and if that's the case with your camera, you then need a dryfit battery of 6 voltage. The second and the most problematic thing is the terminal plug that will fit into the camera. I resolved this problem by cutting the outside power supply wire that came with the camera and using the terminal plug from that. Don't worry, the outside power supply is still usable, you'll see.
- So, what you need is:
1.) Dryfit battery, with a correct voltage. (about 20€)
2.) One piece of wire, connected to the battery. (about 1€)
3.) One piece of wire, that will connect the battery wire to your camera. (Easily done, by cutting the outside power supply wire)
4.) Two pieces of terminal plugs, that can be attached together. (These will connect the battery wire, to a shorter wire) (about 2€)
5.) Hot-Setting Adhesive or a similar substance to attach the wire firmly into the battery and keep moisture away.
6.) One piece of terminal plug. (That will connect the battery charger to the battery itself) (about 1€)
7.) Battery charger. (Having the same charge voltage as in the battery) (about 20€)
Sounds difficult? Hopefully these pictures will help...
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- Here's the dryfit battery I've been using for a year now. Notice that the wires have been attached to the battery by a hot-setting adhesive. The only thing you need to remember, is to connect the wire correctly. Minus to minus and plus to plus. The picture also shows one option for a terminal plug. It doesn't need to be pretty, or does it? - So here we have the points 1.), 2.), 5.) and the point 4.) partly handled, from the supply list that's stated above. |
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- And here we have the point 3.) and 4.) from the supply list. Not a pretty picture, but it will do. - Notice the left side terminal plug? That's from the outside power supply that's made by the camera manufacturer. It will fit as planned to the cameras power supply connection. The right side terminal plug on the other hand, will fit nicely to the terminal plug that's coming from the battery itself. (See picture #1) |
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- So it's time to connect the battery to the camera. Every camera has an outside power supply plug and here's a picture from my camera. It's protected behind that hatch, which by the way, also gives you an idea what voltage the camera uses. |
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- When the hatch is opened, it reveals two connections. In my camera, as you can read from the hatch markings in the above picture (Picture #3), the left side connection is the correct one. I cannot make any guesses about your camera though. |
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- And here we finally have the dryfit battery
connected to the camera. So what you see in the picture is: |
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- And here we have the battery charger and one piece of terminal plugs, number 6.) and 7.) from the supply list, which enables you to recharge the dryfit battery after the use. Notice that it has a terminal plug, that will fit nicely to the wire coming from the battery itself (Picture #1) - No other modifications are necessary for the battery charger. Just attach a terminal plug to it, that will fit into the battery wire. |
- I hear the question raising, that why do I need two wires? The smaller wire, (As seen in picture #2) enables you to still use the outside power supply, by simply making another connection to it, similar as in the battery wire (Picture #1). Also two wires is a good thing for a safety issues. If the wire gets tangled into something, it wont twist the connection in the camera itself, but it will get loose from the connection between the battery (Picture #1) and the smaller wire (Picture #2).
- This kind a battery system has worked fine in Minolta Dimage 7i and in Olympus Camedia C-2000 Z
- If something seems to be too confusing, just send me an email and I'll try to answer if I can. Also, if you go and construct this kind of battery system, it would be nice to hear from you and I could add another camera to the list, in witch this kind of system has been tested. The supplies that I've listed above are the supplies that I've used. If you're handy, you don't need to follow this instruction so blindly and can make your own improvements and modifications. However, the whole point of this is the dryfit battery, where the substance is inside of gel, making it very light to carry around and enables you to carry the battery, in which way you want. It also does not need maintenance etc. If you go and buy ordinary lead battery or something similar, you might just forget this idea.
- However, I cannot and will not take any responsibility if your camera gets broken or you mess up everything. So you are constructing this kind of system, with your own risk!
- Minolta has strictly forbid me to make a connection like this to the camera and are not taking any responsibility of the possible damage! According to Minolta, the connection wont work and the camera will be broken for good!
- More information about dryfit lead-acid gel batteries from the manufacturer pages: Sonnenschein
