Video camera rechargeable batteries

[Graeme]

I have a Flip camera, several years old, and the rechargeable battery no longer holds a charge for more than a few minutes recording. The battery looks to be a pair of AA batteries in a plastic shrink wrap case, , on which is printed NiMH battery Rating 2.4v 2100mAh.

I have a pair of rechargeable batteries, which will fit, labelled as Duracell AA/HR6/DC1500 mAh/1.2v1300 mAh.

Given that the two Duracells together will be (2x1300) 2600 mAh, is it safe/OK to put the Duracell rechargeables in the camera? Presumably the camera will only draw the power it requires? Again, presumably I can safely charge the batteries by plugging the camera into a laptop USB socket, which is how the original is charged.

Thanks.

[Andy Burns]

Two 1.2V 1300mAh cells in series will be a 2.4V 1300mAh battery not 2600mAh

Yep, but for a couple of quid you could get some higher capacity than the duracells, e.g.

[Graeme]

Yes, thank you.

Excellent.

Thanks!

[NY]

Some manufacturers seem to think that it is wrong to put in batteries with a higher mAh rating. We had some cordless DECT phones which took 2 rechargeable AAA batteries. When these stopped holding their charge, we replaced them with some at a slightly higher mAh rating than the ones that had been supplied with the phones. When we continued to have problems (phone would go from full charge to zero charge in 30 seconds, but other times would last for maybe an hour of continuous usage) the manufacturer said that we should not have used batteries with a larger energy storage in mAh. Sounds like absolute bollocks to me. As far as I remember, technology was still the same (probably NiMH), only capacity was increased in replacement batteries.

[Dave W]

I recently acquired a DECT phone from Freecycle. The two AAA batteries were the original Chinese ones and would go from full to zero immediately when you tried to answer a call. So I replaced them with new rechargables having almost twice the capacity of the originals.

Initially the charge indicator showed empty even though the cells are the new type that are sold already charged and hold their charge well. So I charged the phone and the indicator then read full. I reckon the indicator doesn't measure the voltage, but just calculates how much charge has gone in, so 'full' might only mean half full as the cells hold twice as much.

Anyway the phone works fine now.

[Brian Gaff]

I'm rather intrigued by the two being shrink sleeved together. Are they actually connected together in series by a wire in the battery pack? If so then down the bottom of the hole they push into may not have a shorting link to enable single batteries to work. Brian

[tabbypurr]

You can do that, but there's one gotcha. Mismatched battery capacities can sometimes cause premature cell death due to overdischarge of one. Sometimes.

NT

[Theo]

I had the opposite - replaced 350mAh manufacturer AAAs with roughly equivalent ones from Poundland, they did the full-to-nothing thing after a couple of months. Replaced them with 850mAh from 7dayshop and they've been fine ever since.

Theo

[Graeme]

Noted, thanks, although I had not intended to fit mismatched batteries. The plan is to fit a new pair which match each other, but don't quite match the originals which are being replaced.