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CHAPTER THREE ...CAMCORDER BATTERIES. The three types of battery in common use with camcorders are the Sealed Lead Acid, found with most large VHS units, the Nickel Cadmium, or "nicad" in the 8MM versions and the newer Nickel Metal-Hydride battery.
The sealed lead acid battery has a weight disadvantage, and will handle only a limited amount of recharging, although I have one that is still usable after twelve years. The Nickel Cadmium battery is lazy and has a memory. This is a chemical problem and is beyond me to explain, but what it amounts to is that if your battery is good for one hour of use, and you use it for twenty minutes and recharge it, after a few times it will not want to go beyond twenty minutes. What the operations manual recommends is to run it all the way down, then recharge it. the catch to this is that the battery is made up of a number of cells, and if you discharge it completely the weakest of these cells will lose its polarity and die, leaving you with a battery that will recharge to possibly four and a half volts instead of six volts. A stunt that works for me is to wire up a 6 to 8 volt radio pilot light (type 47) to a pair of thin strips of metal that will push in between the battery contacts and the charging unit, without the charger plugged in. I can then keep an eye on this light as it slowly discharges the battery. Nickel Metal-Hydride (NiMH) batteries are more expensive than NiCads, but have a 30% longer life and do not have the same memory problems. Some of the Sony camcorders have adapters available that will plug into either a larger sealed lead acid battery or the cigarette lighter on your car. in the latter case it is possible to recharge the battery as you drive. One final word of warning, don't run your only battery down with a cassette in the camcorder, or you will have a terrible time getting it out. |
