INSANE battery costs!

adolgin said:
The thing is if Evro observation is correct, just wiring another battery would not work; it looks like Panasonic designed in a voltage level interlock in addition to the communication one. Essentially, the AC Adapter puts out fixed voltage about 7.5V, if a 2 cell Li-Ion battery is connected, it's voltage is about 8.2V fully charged, causing the camera to shut off and display the message. Evro, did I interpret your test correctly? I do not have access to the 150, so can not verify this.
Click to expand...

Actually if you read one of my much earlier post on using a 12volt for this system I specified step down to the requisite voltage.

I think he said the range is somewhere in the 7.1 - 7.9 volt spread.

It is absolutely doable.

But, each person has to evaluate their needs to see if it is worth the effort.
 
Electrically, yes, doable. In fact we are making DC converters (scroll down) you are refering to for years. This solution is great for stationary use, but becomes less conveinent for the run and gun situations.
 
The whole problem other than being teathered to a battery belt is that there's no way of knowing how much charge you have left in your batteries, and of course accidentally pulling the plug out of the battery during a run-n-gun situation. That's why I decided to suck it up & buy the Panasonic batteries.

Panasonic 1 - Evro 0... for now ;-)

Panasonic's proprietary systems may well be less impenetrable than Sony's, which could explain why Sony has a seemingly bigger market share in consumer electronics.
 
I'll gladly shell out the money on the batteries instead of P2cards... I can find SD cards anywhere and they are super cheap... can't say that the local P2 availability is so great and certainly the price isn't.. When you run out of solid state media.. it's just a trip to walmart.
 
evro.. EXACTLY. They sell those things anywhere.... I am so sold on this cam that HVX is gone in February. I would consider buying a 170 in the future... but the old HVX is history! It is a great cam for short form work but if you are shooting lots and lots of stuff then it's NOT. The 150 is a great cam for both types of application. The improvment in the noise and low-light over the HVX is simply remarkable...


How's Australia these days?
 
One other point -- the extended 7.2 V 5800 mA battery will power the AG-HMC150 AVCCAM cam about four hours.

That's not too shabby.
 
I don't have the HMC-150 yet, but the connection looks similar to the one on my old PV-GS300, which I built a few 5000 mAH battery packs for a few years ago.

Because of the proprietary connection, the biggest problem was figuring out how to make the connection between the battery and the camera. I looked at the 3 piece cable that came with the camcorder to run it off A/C power, and figured I might be able to connect the battery to the other end of it (in place of the A/C adapter). I was able to find an in line power jack connection that fit onto the cable at a local electronics store, along with a 6 “C” size battery holder (to achieve 7.2 volts with 1.2 volt NIMH batteries). I had some 5000 mAH C cells that I had picked up from Battery Space for my bike lights. I even made a case for the battery pack to make it look presentable.

BatteryPack1.jpg


I think this could be done fairly easily and kept within the voltage range required by the HMC-150. But Its one thing to do this for my $400 (at the time) camcorder, its a whole other thing to do this on a $3500 camcorder. As has been mentioned, if you get the polarity wrong, you could screw up your camcorder and void your warranty.

Its probably wise just to pay for the bigger battery.
 
I don't think running a DIY battery system is a good move. In Canada my camera came with a 3 year warranty. Why mess with a 4k investment (Can.$) for a few dollars? And as David points out the camera will run for 4 hours on one battery, that is a lot of shooting, so if you go for two 5800 batteries along with the stock battery that came with the camera you can shoot for quite a while or at least long enough to charge up the down one. I currently have 5 batteries for my DVX all big ones and have never used more than three in one day and that was during an election where the day was extrememly long. Why five? I was having a Betacam relapse when I bought them.
 
I should probably pick up another battery... who has the best price right now? And more importantly, who has that price actually in stock?
 
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