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-   -   Lithium Batteries (http://www.film-and-darkroom-user.org.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=11733)

Steve Walter 21st September 2017 05:51 PM

Lithium Batteries
 
I have 5 canon cameras that were originally designed to have a 6 volt silver oxide cell for power. I recently tried PX-28L lithium batteries. The result have been horrific. The exposures are all over the place. Correct to gross under exposure. Has anyone else ever had this problem? I am going back to trying alkaline batteries, but I am not sure this will correct the problem. Comments??

Steve Walter
ML Photographer:mad:

Steve Smith 22nd September 2017 11:30 AM

If it doesn't correct the problem, the batteries weren't causing it!


Steve.

Steve Walter 22nd September 2017 12:08 PM

The problem is happening on at least 3 cameras - AV-1, A-1, F-1n. It is hard to believe that 3 cameras would develop the same problem at the same time.

John King 22nd September 2017 03:56 PM

I occasionally get this with my D90 but I don't have an option to use anything else. It is normally 2-3 frames then all is back to normal again. I had put it down to camera error but now I am not so sure. These were as far as I am aware were when I was using using aftermarket batteries, rather than genuine Nikon causes the problem.

Having said, that I have never had a problem with my F6 and that uses Lithium with no alternatives available, and definitely not branded Nikon

Mike O'Pray 22nd September 2017 04:37 PM

I take it that the "dodgy" exposures happened immediately you used the lithium batteries and that previously with alkaline batteries there had never been "dodgy" exposures. If this is the case then it does suggest that the change to lithium is the source of the problem, otherwise it is quite a coincidence that an "in-camera" fault, unrelated to the battery change has arisen straight away. However coincidences do happen.

At the risk of insulting your intelligence, I take it that the lithium you are using is the correct one for the Canon and that Canon doesn't warn against the use of lithium? I'll give an example at the end why the obvious is sometimes the answer

The strange thing is that some exposures are OK when I'd have thought that if the lithium is the problem then none of the exposures would be correct.

Your could try and borrow an accurate hand-meter and check a few readings against the camera's meter readings.

If it were me then I'd change back to alkaline and check what happens then. If over a range of conditions and a lot of exposures the camera meter is back to correct readings then it would seem that lithium may be the problem.

Is there a Canon users website as there is for Nikon? If so you might go there and see if there are similar reported problems.

Now the example of the obvious being the answer. On another site someone reported a problem of severe fogging of paper that was only 3 years old and had been stored in a freezer/refridgerator

Clearly this shouldn't have happened and as usual many people tried to give helpful answers but no-one including the complainant thought to ask the obvious question, namely, was the fridge working properly? It was a fridge in a garage used, it would appear, for photographic materials only. Several days after starting the thread, the complainant reported he had been working in his garage when he noticed the "silence". His fridge was not working and presumably had not been working for a long time. He lives in that part of the U.S. where for months the temperature climbs to 100 degrees F for weeks at a time .

The good news was that even at these temperatures the Ilford paper was OK - the paper in question was Oriental Seagull :D

Mike.

alexmuir 22nd September 2017 10:46 PM

I think the problem comes about when the batteries currently available for these cameras are lithium, whereas originally some other type, like mercury or silver oxide was specified? I would try alkaline to see how it works. Some people recently have reported that their cameras work ok with 1.5v alkaline used in place of the original 1.35v mercury. I am using the 1.4v alkaline 675 hearing aid cells in a Nikon cine camera that should use 1.35v mercury. I had expected them to last only 2 weeks, but they have been active since May, powering the meter and auto exposure. They are also very cheap.
Alex


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John King 22nd September 2017 11:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by alexmuir (Post 116182)
I think the problem comes about when the batteries currently available for these cameras are lithium, whereas originally some other type, like mercury or silver oxide was specified? I would try alkaline to see how it works. Some people recently have reported that their cameras work ok with 1.5v alkaline used in place of the original 1.35v mercury. I am using the 1.4v alkaline 675 hearing aid cells in a Nikon cine camera that should use 1.35v mercury. I had expected them to last only 2 weeks, but they have been active since May, powering the meter and auto exposure. They are also very cheap.
Alex


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That's a bit of news, what is the product code for them

alexmuir 23rd September 2017 08:34 AM

I'm not at home at the moment, John, so can't check the package. If you go into Boots, or somewhere that stocks hearing aid batteries, you should find them. There are only around 3 or 4 types of hearing aid batteries in use in the U.K. The ones you want are the larger button cells referred to as type 675. They cost less than £5 for a pack of 6 or 8. They are marked as 1.4v. You remove a sticker to activate them. Apparently, if you cover some of the air holes on the cell, it will last longer. That operation was too fiddly for me, so I just removed the sticker to activate them, and used them as normal.
Alex


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Steve Walter 23rd September 2017 12:49 PM

Thanks to everyone for your advice. :mob: I found 6V silver oxide cells on the B&H website at twice the price of alkaline or lithium. If the switch to alkaline doesn't help, I guess that I will have to suck it up and go to the silver oxide.:eek:

John King 23rd September 2017 03:11 PM

Batteries
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by alexmuir (Post 116184)
I'm not at home at the moment, John, so can't check the package. If you go into Boots, or somewhere that stocks hearing aid batteries, you should find them. There are only around 3 or 4 types of hearing aid batteries in use in the U.K. The ones you want are the larger button cells referred to as type 675. They cost less than £5 for a pack of 6 or 8. They are marked as 1.4v. You remove a sticker to activate them. Apparently, if you cover some of the air holes on the cell, it will last longer. That operation was too fiddly for me, so I just removed the sticker to activate them, and used them as normal.
Alex


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Thanks for that I will check tomorrow when I go into town.

Removing a sticker to expose air holes, sounds very much as if they work on the same principal as the Wein cells that cost a damn sight more.
Being only .1 of a volt more than the old mercury batteries means that they will probably do the same job without the alternative expensive voltage reducer that you can buy and use with silver oxide cells.


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