dead batteries

[tired]

I got caught short with a partially charged battery recently so I've been checking the charge with a multimeter - bad idea!

Yesterday I got caught with a number of dead batteries - they were fully charged but in testing with the multimeter I must have moved/damaged the contacts and they wouldn't work in the camera - it was a wedding :-(

luckily I made it through and used one battery with the cover open (as soon as I closed the cover, the camera died)

I've solved the problem by ripping the guts out of one of the battery chargers (I use 4 GH1's)
and wiring the multimeter up to that - works fine and doesn't wreck the connectors.

just a mention so others can learn from my mistake.

(anyone interested in some quality used batteries?)

 

[swyzlstyx]

That's bizarre, thanks for the tip!

Just curious, why do you need a multimeter to tell if your batteries are charged? Doesn't the charger tell you? I pop all my batteries/rechargable audio devices/lights on their chargers before each wedding just to make sure. But if you have 4 GH1's, you're probably doing a lot more weddings than I am, so I guess a multi-meter might be a timesaver?

 

[tired]

That's bizarre, thanks for the tip!

I pop all my batteries/rechargable audio devices/lights on their chargers before each wedding just to make sure.

so do I but I don't feel that's any guarantee of a full charge. I've had batteries that don't seem to last the distance - that's why I started using the multimeter. I noticed that there are cheap battery chargers on Ebay - I should have got one of those to pull apart instead of using a genuine one - it does the job though.