GH2 GH2 Power - specs, tests, DIY

keylight said:
That link is actually what inspired this whole thread. I used the same battery he used in my initial test (see the very first post in the thread for links). I got 8 hours. The battery eventually died and that's when I got the Tekkeon, which keeps on going and going.....

Again, don't know anything about the other batteries, but one possible drawback is the voltage setting is done via a push button. If you accidentally hit the button and up the voltage, you could fry the camera. The Tekkeon has dip switches on the bottom under a little rubber seal.

Still, for $60, they might be worth a try. If you do get one of them, I hope you'll report back what you learn.

Cheers!
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Ah, I see that now. I have been doing enough research on this subject to go blind in one eye. I apologize, I have so many forum windows open that I lost track of which conversation each topic started in.

I have to admit, the RC battery thing scared me because I know that these batteries can read higher voltage when they finish charging for a little while, before they taper off into normal zones. I think I recall reading somewhere that a fellow attached a volt meter after charging and got 10+volts! That's far enough beyond the recommended 8.6-9v to make me nervous. But as far as it eventually dying- maybe I just don't understand the problem. They seem pretty cheap, why not buy another? You'd have to buy 10 of them to make up the cost of the Tekkeon, and all batteries eventually wear out. By the time you go through 10 RC batteries, who's the say the Tekkeon will continue holding a charge? :)

Seriously though, what happened to yours? Did it just refuse to charge after a while?
 
This works great:
http://marcuswolschon.blogspot.de/2012/07/panasonic-gh2-powered-via-usb-battery.html
No soldering, works out of the box. It powers my GH2 with 9V and 2 USB devices (e.g. my Zoom H4n with a USB-2-DC cable I made).

Still I would prefer a solution that adapts a battery cheap Canon 550D/... grip like with the GH1.
This is no solution for shooting handheld. Only for heavy shoulder rigs or tripods. ...and of cause only if you don't switch between handheld, tripod and shoulder rig at a moment's notice.
 
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MarcusWolschon said:
This works great:
http://marcuswolschon.blogspot.de/2012/07/panasonic-gh2-powered-via-usb-battery.html
No soldering, works out of the box. It powers my GH2 with 9V and 2 USB devices (e.g. my Zoom H4n with a USB-2-DC cable I made).

Still I would prefer a solution that adapts a battery cheap Canon 550D/... grip like with the GH1.
This is no solution for shooting handheld. Only for heavy shoulder rigs or tripods. ...and of cause only if you don't switch between handheld, tripod and shoulder rig at a moment's notice.
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So, it'll power 3 devices at different voltages at the same time? That would beat the Tekkeon.

I shoot handheld sometimes. I just use a longer cable and can strap the battery on (Velcro) or use a small camera pouch/bag to carry the battery on my belt.
 
Then make sure the DC plugs don't slip out during a shoot.
They don't lock in any way.

For photos it will probably work but for video I find that unacceptable as the connector may be pulled out by the slightest of forces any time and ruin the shot.
 
MarcusWolschon said:
This works great:
http://marcuswolschon.blogspot.de/2012/07/panasonic-gh2-powered-via-usb-battery.html
No soldering, works out of the box. It powers my GH2 with 9V and 2 USB devices (e.g. my Zoom H4n with a USB-2-DC cable I made).

Still I would prefer a solution that adapts a battery cheap Canon 550D/... grip like with the GH1.
This is no solution for shooting handheld. Only for heavy shoulder rigs or tripods. ...and of cause only if you don't switch between handheld, tripod and shoulder rig at a moment's notice.
Click to expand...

Holy cow! Its amazing that you just posted this! It appears that this is a popular OEM design that is being rebranded under a few different names. I *just* found this about 20 minutes ago:
http://www.amazon.com/Warranty-10000mAh-External-Battery-Charger/dp/B005NGKR54/ref=pd_cp_cps_0
as well as this:
http://www.amazon.com/EZOPower-High...000mAh-Blackberry/dp/B005XQSN9G/ref=pd_ybh_11

I was just thinking to myself "I wonder if someone else has already tried and posted this model, because it might be under yet a different name so I wouldn't know".

Incredible! You've had good results with this, I gather? What kind of battery life are you getting, and how long have you had it?
 
MarcusWolschon said:
I have yet to test the battery life in a long lasting video recoding with display and MF.
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Well why not?! If cheesycam considers this news: http://cheesycam.com/gh2-external-extended-battery-power-pack/

Your find seems like a better product, if only because it has the proper adapters included for less (especially if you already have the dcc8), and offers a battery life indicator! It might just be too late for me to think clearly at 2am, BUT THIS MUST BE PUBLICIZED!
 
Why not? Because I have many other things that are more important right now then doing a serveral hour video recording of something that moves.
Any because it's a blog posting it already is publicized. That's the point of having a blog.
 
MarcusWolschon said:
Then make sure the DC plugs don't slip out during a shoot.
They don't lock in any way.

For photos it will probably work but for video I find that unacceptable as the connector may be pulled out by the slightest of forces any time and ruin the shot.
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There are two very simple solutions I use to solve that problem, and I never have a cable come unplugged. Both are shown in this photo:

hack.jpg

A velcro wrap (doesn't need to be tight, just enough so it holds) or gaffers tape.

But... you still haven't indicated if it'll power 3 devices at different voltages at the same time, or only one device (or multiple devices at the same voltage) at a time. The post you linked to doesn't say (just sort of talks about it won't last as long if it can). But if you have one, could you let us know?

And it's easy to do a time test. Point it out a window at traffic, zoom in a bit, turn auto-focus on, hit record. Come back 3 hours later, format, record some more. Three hours later, come back and format again, hit record. At some point the battery will die. Pop the SD card in your computer and see how long the clip is. Add 3 hours to that time for each cycle you formatted and you have your time.

That'll be accurate enough to tell you how long it lasts with the LCD on with motion and the auto-focus going. You'll end up getting better results if you use manual focus (as many people do when shooting video). That's basically how I initially tested the Tekkeon for 8+ hours, and sure enough, that's probably about what I'm getting.
 
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No one would film long sequences with AF. The risk of it pumping when the light changes and ruining a 3+h shot would be too large.
When the battery dies, the last 2GB clip doesn't get finished and chances are that it cannot be reat anymore.
 
MarcusWolschon said:
No one would film long sequences with AF. The risk of it pumping when the light changes and ruining a 3+h shot would be too large.
When the battery dies, the last 2GB clip doesn't get finished and chances are that it cannot be reat anymore.
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Obviously they wouldn't normally do that. As for when the battery dies, I seem to recall my camera saved the file before shutting off. I don't remember it shutting off mid-recording. But even if it did, you would still get a minimum record time by running the test.

But hey, I get it. You're too busy.
 
If can only do that of it gets an info from the battery that it is about to die.
That only works with a Panasonic battery, not with external power.
The camera thinks it's on mains power and thus will never die.
 
Voltage meter? The battery will continue to drop voltage as it's used, so after a certain point, the camera will shut off. Just need to know that number and work around it.
 
MarcusWolschon said:
If can only do that of it gets an info from the battery that it is about to die.
That only works with a Panasonic battery, not with external power.
The camera thinks it's on mains power and thus will never die.
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Doesn't that battery show how much juice is left on the body?
 
The camera asks a coulomb counter chip inside the battery pack via I2C to tell it how depleted the battery is.
With LiIon things are a bit more complicated then with the old lead-acid cells you may be used to.
That protocol is also used to ensure that it's a genuine Panasonic battery.
That protocol is required for 7.2V battery operation.
For >8V the camera does not do this protocol and assumes it is on the DDC9 external power and does not do any battery metering at all.
Why should it? 230V mains power does not deplete after all.
 
MarcusWolschon said:
The camera asks a coulomb counter chip inside the battery pack via I2C to tell it how depleted the battery is.
With LiIon things are a bit more complicated then with the old lead-acid cells you may be used to.
That protocol is also used to ensure that it's a genuine Panasonic battery.
That protocol is required for 7.2V battery operation.
For >8V the camera does not do this protocol and assumes it is on the DDC9 external power and does not do any battery metering at all.
Why should it? 230V mains power does not deplete after all.
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We know this.
I meant the battery pack. It has its own meter in the form of 4-5 LED lights, it looks like. Unless I am mistaken?
 
MarcusWolschon said:
Yes it has but that doesn't allow the camera to properly stop recording and shut down when power runs out.
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That may be. But there are 3 things to consider here.

1) The camera shuts off on its own, since it can technically continue operating at 7.2 volts very happily with the internal battery. It merely refuses to be powered that low without the chip confirmation of an official battery. It is not a hard power off the way it would be if, lets say, the plug was removed during filming. I'm not saying there is definitely a difference, but I would think the camera would shut off gracefully with its normal power down routines internally when the voltage becomes low enough for it to consider the battery incompatible. At 7.2v, it clearly turns on enough to power up the LCD and give you the message, so I see no reason to assume this situation would be any worse than the internal battery dying.

2) When the camera dies a sudden death during a shoot (and mine has, AC adapter getting unplugged), the file isn't necessarily lost. AVCHD is a stream-like format. I've been able to grab the MTS file off the card and load it into Premiere or Vegas without a problem. When the recording is stopped, I believe some sort of table of contents are written to the first file, which might be missing if the power is cut before you stop it. That might make automatic importing of spanned clips difficult, and why many may report that the data is corrupted when the power goes. But this happened to me on a recent shoot, and as I mentioned, we were able to recover the file up until the power outage without a problem.

3) The LEDs on the front of the battery pack should be able to give us some sort of indication of where we stand on battery power. I would just rely on that instead of the internal meter, just make sure to swap/charge before it gets to the point tested as the danger zone. I'm not 100% sure that having the internal battery die on a shoot is any better than having the external one go without any warning. Remember, as in point #1, just because the camera refuses to work doesn't mean there isn't enough battery power to properly shut down. I'm not sure that would be any difference practically.
 
Whoa- technical specs for that battery pack are internally 10,000mah at 3.7 volts. My knowledge of voltage conversion is rusty- does the mAh rating change with the voltage? For example, if I'm running this thing at 9v, will I be getting significantly less than the advertised 10,000mAh?
 
M. Gilden said:
Whoa- technical specs for that battery pack are internally 10,000mah at 3.7 volts. My knowledge of voltage conversion is rusty- does the mAh rating change with the voltage? For example, if I'm running this thing at 9v, will I be getting significantly less than the advertised 10,000mAh?
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Yes and yes. For example, this is the battery I'm running:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/28082882902...X:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649#ht_5114wt_1032

mAh vs voltage:

6500mAh @ 12V
8500mAh @ 9V
15000mAh @ 5V

That battery probably won't have much at 9V, since going from 5-9V almost drops power in half already. Still should be a bit more than 2x the capacity of the OEM battery, though.
 
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