Question About Battery Voltage

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

" J-Man" <JMan@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:yC7Bd.3144$Cc.2871@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> I just picked up a new Kyocera Finecam S5R. It was a spur-of-the-moment
> impulse purchase when I saw it as an "open box" special for $100. One of
my
> cardinal rules in buying digital cameras (this is my fifth one) is to
avoid
> those that do not use AA or other easily replaceable batteries-- this
> purchase was my first violation of that rule. The Kyocera uses a
> rechargeable Li-Ion battery marked as 3.6v and 1000 mAh. New batteries
> purchased from Kyocera cost almost half as much as I paid for the camera,
so
> I started investigating generics on eBay and elsewhere. I've yet to find
an
> exact replacement-- all of the generics are either 800 mAh or 700 mAh. I
> figure that's not that much of an issue, but what confuses me is that many
> of the generics are shown as 3.7v instead of 3.6. Would this change in
> voltage cause a problem?

The small differance in voltage is no problem. The mAh might make a
differance in what you want to pay. The 700 and 800 only hold 70 and 80
percent of the 1000 mah battery's charge or number of pix you may be able to
take.

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

" J-Man" <JMan@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:yC7Bd.3144$Cc.2871@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> I just picked up a new Kyocera Finecam S5R. It was a spur-of-the-moment
> impulse purchase when I saw it as an "open box" special for $100. One of
my
> cardinal rules in buying digital cameras (this is my fifth one) is to
avoid
> those that do not use AA or other easily replaceable batteries-- this
> purchase was my first violation of that rule. The Kyocera uses a
> rechargeable Li-Ion battery marked as 3.6v and 1000 mAh. New batteries
> purchased from Kyocera cost almost half as much as I paid for the camera,
so
> I started investigating generics on eBay and elsewhere. I've yet to find
an
> exact replacement-- all of the generics are either 800 mAh or 700 mAh. I
> figure that's not that much of an issue, but what confuses me is that many
> of the generics are shown as 3.7v instead of 3.6. Would this change in
> voltage cause a problem?

A fully charged Li-Ion cell shows an open-circuit voltage of around 4.1V, an
fully discharged cell goes as low as 3.0V (depending on the minimum voltage
spec of your camera). I violated your rule with my very first camera already
(a Sony DSC-F505). Because I got tired of buying expensive NP-FS11s all the
time (none of mine lived longer than about 2 years) I browsed the web and
found this nice project:
http://members.fortunecity.de/kapmfs/e-liakku01.htm
Fortunately I have access to defective notebook battery packs. In most cases
only one of the cells is defective, sometimes all are ok. They all have the
same voltage range, and the higher their capacity the longer my camera will
operate. Please note that the original protection circuitry is still used in
this project. Internal cells are simply replaced by larger external cells
connected via a cable.