I just bought a dv camcorder. It was really cheap, and the battery is the 30 minute type. It has a jack under the battery to run it off of the ac/charger. Can I use something like a R/C car battery (clipped to my belt, etc.) with the right jack spliced on to the end to power it for an extended time? The original battery is 7.2v 800mAh. I see R/C batteries for ~$15 that are 7.2v 3000 mAh. Basically, will the camera just draw what it needs as far as amps goes, or could this fry the cam? Any help appreciated...
Rick
Last edited by bibletoter; 08-23-2002 at 05:11 PM.
I would think since both batterie are rated @ 7.2 volts, the larger one would work, all it is doing is providing a larger reserve time. like when you get the larger capacity batteries for cell phones, the mAh is larger, so more reserve.
Anology time.
Say you have a faucet that flows 5 gallons/hr.
hook it to a tank that has 25 gallons, you get 5 hours worth of flow @ 5 GPH.
put it on a tank with 100 gallons of capacity, get 20 hours worth of flow @ 5 GPH.
Doesn't go any faster, just longer...
Yes. But if you try this, make sure you get the pins the right way. If you connect the + and - to the wrong sides of the power plug, you'll probably do more damage than good to the camcorder. Nine times out of ten, the outer ring (the part you can see) on a power plug jack is the ground, BUT, I have seen some there aren't. If it's a mono type jack, then the tip is the positive usually, and the sheath is the negative. Not that you can tell any of that normally, as the wires are inside a big glob of plastic.
Thanks folks! I hope this will be a better solution than dropping ~$60 for a second hi capacity battery.
BTW, I got a JVC GR-DVL505 refurb from overstock.com for $360. I love it so far, but I still need a firewire card to burn some VCD home videos!
Whir brings a very good point. If you have a multimeter, you should be able to test the battery that you have now.
If you have the test leads on the plug in correct polarity, your meter will show like 7.2, but if you have them reversed, the meter will show -7.2 That way you can be sure of the polarity and hook it up correctly
Added to all that excellent advice, if the RC battery packs are too expensive, consider getting some "tabbed" batteries from www.thomasdistributing.com and make your own, or use the non-tabbed units in the packs that they offer for cheap.
Lots of RC battery packs are Lead/Acid or Nickle Cadmium, both are posionous and require special care when recharging.
Get Nickle Metal Hydride and you don't have to worry about the "memory effect" plagued by the aforementined items.
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