I purchased a Kodak 700 digital camera specifically for use on my Europe trip. I did not realize the battery consumption of these little cameras. Any suggestions on how to have enough battery power for this trip. Should i take bags of batteries with me or should i purchase rechargable batteries and try using a Euro power adapter to recharge them? Thank you for your help df

-- Darlene Foster (dfost@ibm.net), August 28, 1999

Answers

Definitely rechargeables!!!!!!!!!!

-- Peter Damo (pdamo@acay.com.au), August 28, 1999.

Rechargeables are definitely part of the answer, specifically NiMH rechargeables. I'd recommend the 1350 ma. Nexcells available from Thomas Distributing(see the link to them on the front page of the Imaging Resource).

The answer gets a touch more complex at this point. Once you buy the cells you need a way to charge them... I'll offer two suggestions:

1. Buy a good fast(3-8hr.) charger that has a 12VDC power option as well as the standard AC power supply. These are designed to operate off 12VDC so they can be run in an automobile for mobile operations. Once again, Thomas Distributing carries these also. A little checking may reveal that the european auto's cigarette jacks will just as happily supply 12vdc of the proper polarity for your charger. Try checking the web for a tourist bureau for the country or see what your travel agent can tell you about their power systems and what adaptors might be needed.

2. Go to Radio Shack or a similar store (or better yet a "real" world electronics supplier like Jameco, Digikey, Newark Electronics, etc.) and buy an adapter designed to produce 120 VAC from the power system(s) used in the countries to which you'll be traveling. For a truly universal solution, buy a 12vdc solar panel of sufficient output power and you can recharge anywhere you can get sufficient light to run the panel/charger combo. With some units you can even get useful power from good indoor lighting.

Before you invest much in the adaptor kit or solar cell panel, charge your batteries and see just how long they'll last in your camera. Bear in mind that having much more battery power than storage medium won't help unless you have a way to download images while traveling, like a laptop PC and pcmcia adapter or a clik! drive. Also, beware of the inherent self-discharge curve of NiMH cells. After 10-20 days the batteries will lose most of their capacity without being used at all, and will need recharging unless they've been trickle charged while being stored.

For the electronically inclined, I'd recommend trying to connect the solar cell, through a simple diode to protect against reversed power flow and damage to the solar cell, to a battery holder, or to a charging circuit and then a holder for a relatively simple charger. For instance, Radio Shack sells a unit(RSU 11931532) that puts out approx. 150 ma. intended to maintain an automobile battery for $32.99. Since NiMH's can be constantly charged(even after they attain a full charge) at a rate of 10%(135ma. for 1350ma. cells), chances are very good that you could very safely charge 8 NiMH AA batteries connected in series from the output of the solar cell. It'd take 10+ hours to charge them, but it'd probably work pretty well. In fairness, I haven't tried this yet as I really don't have a need for a universal charger, but it's been done before by others. As a side note, if you go this route the Nimh's seem to be fully charged at about 1.414vdc per cell. So in practice you can simply periodically monitor the voltage of a cell with a volt meter to see when they're fully charged. If you're charging at C/10(10% of the batteries ma capacity) or less you can safely leave them charging for up to a year according to the manufacturers.

If you'd like to try it and need help or details email me and I'll try to help. If you're at all handy it's pretty simple. If you're not handy do a web search for solar chargers or solar battery chargers and you may find a prebuilt unit, but probably at a premium price.

No matter what, carry a few sets of lithium AA's or good alkaline AA's for those "one in million" shots you always seem to get right after every battery in sight has run down.

Good luck, and enjoy your trip!

-- Gerald Payne (gmp@francorp.francomm.com), August 29, 1999.

I did a bit 'o' sufin' and found this: The BatterySAVER Powerpack Solar Battery Charger. See: http://www.whitebulb.com/product.htm

It looks like an ideal solution in that it recharges 4 NiMH AA's, stores another 4 cells and only costs $39.95. Not a bad deal, and you needn't strip a wire to build it. :-)

-- Gerald Payne (gmp@francorp.francomm.com), August 29, 1999.

How many days is your trip going to be? How many of thoose days do you think you will be taking photos? Will they be outdoor with optical viewfinder, no flash or indoor w/ LCD viewfinder and all flash or a mix. How many picture do you plan on taking? What method of transfer to another device for memory storage are you planning? Will the camera be required and powered up for this transfer? These will all play into your battery power needs. Also have you considered another camera. I have an Epson 750Z and can shoot 100 pictures w/flash and using LCD viewfinder on one set of NiMH batteries.

-- Bob G. (rgreg88721@hotmail.com), August 30, 1999.