-=1D Mk II and Mk IIn Owners Unite!

I bought two new Lenmars from amazon when I bought my MkIIN. Cheap, very good batteries. I consistantly get 3000 shots on a charge. I do refresh every other chage and they are holding up very well. They are down to $34 now.

My 1DMii is shipping out tomorrow... As far as batteries go I think I will pick up an old dead Canon battery and change out the cells inside of it. I hear the Canon batteries do much better with regards to weather sealing.

canonloader wrote in post #8836388
I bought two new Lenmars from amazon when I bought my MkIIN. Cheap, very good batteries. I consistantly get 3000 shots on a charge. I do refresh every other chage and they are holding up very well. They are down to $34 now.

And if you have old Canon batteries you can swap out the end caps for factory-fresh weather sealing (the Lenmars are OK but not as nice as the Canon OEMs).

beeng wrote in post #8836403
My 1DMii is shipping out tomorrow... As far as batteries go I think I will pick up an old dead Canon battery and change out the cells inside of it. I hear the Canon batteries do much better with regards to weather sealing.

Heh, easier to do what I wrote above ^^^

I have heard that. I got an old dead Canon battery when I bought my MkIIN in April. I could not get that battery to hold a charge for more than 30 shots. I took the end cap off it to use as a cover when not keeping a battery in it. [which turns out to be never] But, I have looked at it close to compare it to a Lenmar, and I see no difference. The rubber seal is soft on both, and covers the exact same groove. Further, the Lenmar lock and turn lever is very secure and actually works the way it is supposed to.

TheHoff wrote in post #8836411
Heh, easier to do what I wrote above ^^^

Says you The interior of the standard Canon battery is actually 20 x NiMH AAs. Yes, AAs. This fellow here already broke down his NP-E3 and replaced the AAs with proper NiMH cells.

I might get lazy and do your method though. Depends on whether I can get my hands off the darned thing to do anything else

10 AAA NiMH rechargables? Prolly cost about $34 or so.

beeng wrote in post #8836435
The interior of the standard Canon battery is actually 20 x NiMH AAs. Yes, AAs.

Heh, I know. The problem, as the Flickr guy pointed out, is that doing all the work to swap the cells and you're still at the same price as if you ordered a Lenmar. Unless you have some super special NiMH cells or can figure out how to make it take LiIon (I'll pay you for that mod), why bother?

TheHoff wrote in post #8836470
make it take LiIon

I was thinking the same thing . It would be relatively easy to get some LIon cells to cram in there. The problem is recharging. LIons have an unusual charge cycle and have a nasty tendency of exploding when charged improperly. I'd have to essential make my own charger unless I wanted to buy some LIon AAs and use an off-the-shelf charger. I'm not sure whether or not an off-the-shelf charger can be modified to charge 10 cells at once.

oh, and don't forget the EXPLODING part.

beeng wrote in post #8836492
I was thinking the same thing . It would be relatively easy to get some LIon cells to cram in there. The problem is recharging. LIons have an unusual charge cycle and have a nasty tendency of exploding when charged improperly. I'd have to essential make my own charger unless I wanted to buy some LIon AAs and use an off-the-shelf charger. I'm not sure whether or not an off-the-shelf charger can be modified to charge 10 cells at once.

oh, and don't forget the EXPLODING part.

Hop to it. Put a few dozen charge/discharge cycles on it without exploding yourself and I'll be first in line to buy it

TheHoff wrote in post #8836506
Hop to it. Put a few dozen charge/discharge cycles on it without exploding yourself and I'll be first in line to buy it

Alright; if you don't hear from me in a few weeks... wait longer.


EDIT: here's a good read on the dangers on LIons http://www.batteryuniv​ersity.com/partone-12.htm

hmm.. Lithium ion batteries are annoying. Or the 1d is. Either way they don't want to play nicely together. The 1D and its 12V is annoying because most lithium ion batteries are not in standard voltages. The 1DmkIII uses 11.1V which is 3 x 3.7V cells. The only thing I can think of doing (that is relatively easy) is to slam a resistor in there to take up the extra voltage in a 3.6*4 (14.4V) system to bring it down to 12V. Each 3.6V battery gives 750maH totalling 3000maH for the whole set. With a resistor thrown in there I figure it will be about 2500maH power being used by the camera itself. This isn't that much better than the 2200maH of the NiMH batteries
I'm not an electrical engineer though :P

If you did that mod with Eneloops, I'm guessing the need to refresh the batteries would become much less? And the battery would hold a charge much better while just sitting in the bag. I might have to give that a go with one of my old OEM NP-E3s...

beeng wrote in post #8836785
hmm.. Lithium ion batteries are annoying. Or the 1d is. Either way they don't want to play nicely together. The 1D and its 12V is annoying because most lithium ion batteries are not in standard voltages. The 1DmkIII uses 11.1V which is 3 x 3.7V cells. The only thing I can think of doing (that is relatively easy) is to slam a resistor in there to take up the extra voltage in a 3.6*4 (14.4V) system to bring it down to 12V. Each 3.6V battery gives 750maH totalling 3000maH for the whole set. With a resistor thrown in there I figure it will be about 2500maH power being used by the camera itself. This isn't that much better than the 2200maH of the NiMH batteries
I'm not an electrical engineer though :P

Would it be more efficient if you put a zener (or zenier) diode clamp in there? It's like a highwatermark that will limit the max voltage. Maybe that's not efficient as it would bleed down all the time?

I'm not an EE, but there's got to be a non-wasteful way of controlling the voltage.

This has all been discussed before. I think your going to need to get some kind of different charger too. And good luck finding one with the connection the 1D batteries use.