lipo camcorder
 

My old MiniDV camcorder needed a new battery. The first one, the original one, was a 7.2V 1000 mah Li Ion battery that never performed well when recording with the LCD screen. I could get a maximum of maybe 10 minutes of recording when using the LCD screen. I upgraded to the biggest battery that could be found at the time which was a 1360 mah one. It was better, a little, maybe close to 16/17 minutes of filming with the LCD screen. Recently, the battery's performance dropped dramatically. I didn't want to spend money on another battery that would perform in a way that would not satisfy me so I thought of using a spare receiver battery from my nitro Revo. A Protek 7.4V 2300 mah lipo battery.
I opened the casing of the Li Ion battery, gutted everything inside except for the tabs that bring the power to the camcorder. I soldered the + and - leads of the lipo on the tabs and wrapped the lipo with the casing using a little CA glue to secure it in place. A piece of heat shrink finishes it off. I left the balance taps sticking out to recharge the batt when needed. It doesn't look as good as before but it's not that bad :mdr: And I get a lot of filming time even when using the LCD screen. Last time I used it, I filmed for 35 minutes with the screen on and there was still plenty of power left in the lipo.

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Nice job... Just watch the cutoff as normally in the battery electrics which you removed...

Nice work. That's pretty sweet that it doesn't get in the way of anything.

Thanks and yes, I'm aware that I will have to be careful not to over discharge the lipo. Small price to pay.

lipo always wins! I just finished modding a nintendo DS by soldering a micro deans to the main power leads so I could run either the stock 850mah li-ion or a 4000 mah zippy single cell lipo! I found the same thing that you did. My new lipo technically has 5 times the amount of runtime, yet it has lasted over 2 days turned on, with mario kart playing... theres something missing in the math that is giving us more runtime than expected..

2 days of Mario Kart..... MMmmmmmm :yes: I prefer the x64 edition!

I used the camcorder for a total of one hour and 25 minutes, filming or viewing always with the LCD screen on. I went to recharge the battery on my CellPro 10s and it said there was still 86% fuel left in the lipo :yes: Best battery I ever put on this camcorder :mdr: