Battery Solution For Lav Mics and Recorder

[Robertofish]

So I will soon enough be buying 3 lavs and a new recorder, I actually just posted about which lavs to get but I am guessing from good reviews that the G3 Series is very good, I will also be using a Edioral Roland 44 With a boom mic, the reason I want to look into battery solutions is because, each lav will require 4 aa batteries (2 for transmitter, 2 for bodypack) and 4 for the Edioral R-44 so in total thats 4x3+4=16 aa batteries, plus you have to factor in that a full film day could be more then 4 hours (which is how long the Edioral will last on 4 aa batteries) so it could be as much as 32 aa batteries in a full day of filming, the other problem is that we will likely be doing one full film day after another, so you have to understand that it will be 32 each day one after another, I dont wan't to throw away up to 32 aa batteries in day so if there is no other solution I will go with rechargeable aa batteries BUT thats a lot to charge in a night, so what I was wondering is if there is another solution that could power the lavs and the Edioral R-44 such as NP1s, and how many I would need and how it would all work?
Thanks

 

[C Lehmann]

I tried rechargeable AAs for lavs and I would NOT recommend it after getting some embarrassingly timed cut outs at live events. It seems that most rechargeable AA batteries go from showing "full" to totally off almost instantly. You don't get any warning and the battery meter shows a full charge, then they are suddenly dead. Then there was the issue of charging dozens of batteries, sometimes in a rush.

I went back to regular AAs where you DO get a pretty good idea of how much life is left by checking the meter. Yes, this means buying in bulk and it's not exactly green, but it saves my reputation. Just make sure to never mix used with new in the same box. If I use new batteries and then remove them for storage after only a few minutes use, I'll mark the pair with sharpies and a note like "C 15m" so at least I'm not wasting almost full batteries.

Another option might be the Sennheiser packs, but at $80 a set and $160 for the charger, you could buy a LOT of batteries for that money. I've not used them, but I'm sure they work as well as most Sennheiser gear.

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