Chris,

I have the PAL version with the CR2025....no problem.

Andrew

Thanks Andrew! Now to be sure that CUSA realizes that Steve's camera is a PAL unit...

Steve, what exactly do you mean by "burned out"? What is the simptom? After you took the battery out, did you have a chance to measure the voltage on it?
Thx
Alex

The voltage of a brand new backup battery was 3.3 V and a couple of week later on XL1S, it had reduced to 0.3 V.
The original one was made by Panasonic and all others were made in Swiss and I purchased them at RadioShack.
I measured them before and after except the original one.
I did not notice any external changes except the low voltage.

Yes, this pretty much excludes the possibility of the bad contact connection... I would say that you are right, there is a fault in the camera, drawing much more current than it should. The tech should be able to connect the ampmeter in series with the battery and actualy see what the current is. It should be very small, microamps.
Alex

Quick question: Can I use the AC adaptor at the same time as the battery is being charged?

Never mind. I'm a dumb ass. The battery will not be charged as long as I have the adaptor plugged into the charger part.

And that stinks, doesn't it. Wouldn't it be great if the AC adapter charged a battery and powered the camera at the same time?

<<<-- Originally posted by Chris Hurd : And that stinks, doesn't it. Wouldn't it be great if the AC adapter charged a battery and powered the camera at the same time? -->>>

Indeed. I can understand this *slowing* the charging of the battery but ...

I guess if I do this often enough I will either need more batteries or another AC adaptor. That's pretty far down on my list.

Hi,

I WOULD NOT TRY it but I would bet that it would work....for a short while.

What disables the charging circuit is the plug on the charger when you plug in the camcorders adaptor. It appears to merely switch the available power from the battery to the camcorder. To disable this switch (like when you plug in earphones and the speaker switches off) I bet would leave both circuits running simultaneously. The problem would be that I would not think that the circuit was designed to deliver the amount of current required for both operations. It would have been so easy to have it do so at the design stage. If the use of the camcorder is intermittent and the load on the unit is minimal it may well work????

Don't try, these things get pricey.

Cheers
Andrew

I was searching for an extra battery charger about 6 months ago and came across the Lenmar Mach1 http://www.lenmar.com/Video/Chargers/msc1.asp The $99 in the ad is list if you buy it direct. I paid around $40.00 (on-line) and another $10 for the adapter to do the XL1 batteries. It also comes with a car adapter and adapters to do many different batteries. It works great. Charging times seem quicker than the standard Canon charger and after 6 months use my batteries seem fine.

Jeff

There's a lot more to charging Lith batteries these days. Part of the reason for this is so that the charging circuit can monitor the recharge process.

Both Lemar and Maha make universal chargers. The Maha, comes as 12 volt charger and then uses adapters for wall power. This allows you to go put your battery in the car or wall power...your choice.

I haven't looked for this model specifically, but they have advertised them as universal, so I am assuming that includes the XL-1 packs.

Nathan Gifford

I have a Starvision 7 inch LCD monitor for my XL1s but have no portable powerpack for it. I am trying to find 12V battery packs but am having little luck.
Anyone have a link to what I need?
I've tried all over town.

I know of two good quality belts, NRG Research http://www.nrgresearch.com/cat.html and Bescor http://www.bescor.com/menu_battery.htm Zotz Digital probably carries one or the other http://www.zotzdigital.com/ Give them a try they help sponsor the site.

Jeff

It might help to know where your located!

Bruce

Oklahoma.
Thanks fo rthe links! Will investigate!

Greetings

I have an adapter that allows you to use the regular XL1 batteries to power your monitor. It works great and keeps me from having one other wire hanging from my XL1. You can find more info on the Watchdog.

Here is the link to the site.
http://www.nebtek.com/5inch/NEB50Xl%20page.html

I used velcro to attach the unit to the monitor. It works perfect. It is kind of nice only having to have one type of battery, and chargers.

What are the specs on it? I've found some good prices on car TFTs, it's probably a more cost-effective solution to the more expensive camera-mounted TFTs available, the only draw back would be the lack of a shoe-mount, and the power source (spliced wires).

The cheapest I've seen specifically for cameras is from Varizoom, but I'm not too keen on lead acid batteries.

Has anyone gone this (car TV) route?

Although several battery packs will work (ie Nebtek and others) they tend to be expensive. For a cheap solution try the Varizoom battery pack for their monitors (around $65 with charger). It looks and feels like an old Sony NP1 or a regular laptop battery and works well with starvision 5.6 and 7 inch TFT LCD screens. Almost any rechargable battery with 12volts and between 750 and 1200 milliamps will also work fine.
Ron
TravelReview@Hotmail.com

Having listened to the advice posted to others on here (the search facility is really useful) I bought the Sennheiser ew100 wireless system and changed the 'on board' XL1 microphone with a Sennheiser MKE 300. I have just reviewed the footage of my first shoot and the improvement is significant - so thanks to everyone who has in the past recommended these mics.

I was shooting a long operation and the battery in the ew100 receiver went down after about five hours and needed to be changed. Interestingly the transmitter was OK, although the low battery light was flashing, which was fortunate as it was under the sterile gown of a surgeon :-) So I learned the lesson to replace the batteries for each shoot!

Anyway, my question is has anyone any idea how many hours the button battery on the MKE300 will last - or should I replace this after every days shooting?

Regards to all

Ross

Rated battery life of the MKE300 is about 200 hours with LR44 battery per the specification sheet.

This appears to be a USA product because it is not on the German Sennheiser web page. Note that it has a rapid low frequency roll off starting around 200 Hz.

The LR44 is an alkaline battery. The MS76 (PX76 different numbers, but same battery from different mfg.) is a silver battery and usually lasts longer. A 357 (exact same battery as MS76) battery is also silver and is used in hearing aids. These can be found for much less money than what camera stores sell the 76 for.

Jeff

<<<-- Originally posted by Don Palomaki : Note that it has a rapid low frequency roll off starting around 200 Hz. -->>>

If you say so boss - but what does it mean?? Sorry but audio is not my forte.

Ross

It just means that the MKE300 isn't terribly good at recording low frequency sounds. Most of the time, this is a good thing since it helps reduce low frequency rumbles (AC units, trucks passing outside, etc.) on your audio track. On the otherhand, if you want decent recordings of something with a lot of low frequency info in it, you may need to find another microphone to record it with.
Hope that helps.

Thanks Ralph, I understand now.

Regards

Ross

I'm going to buy another extra battery for my XL1-s. Do most of you buy only Canon batteries or will you buy a off brand? Where do you buy them from? Thanks for the help

Try this string. A number of people are using the Lenmar battery with good results.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?threadid=622

I bought off brands off Ebay. I'm happy with the price and results.

Can you tell me which off brand you bought at ebay? Ebay Germany has also 945 type batteries for sale.

Not sure. They just say "Fits Canon" on them. I threw out the boxes so I can't check. I don't remember a name off them.

Anyone tried the pwoer-2000 version of the BP-945?

Yes, Aaron. I have several Power 2000 batteries. Their specs and actual performance make them the best available BP-945 - class batteries in my experience.

Ok, revisiting this thread. I'm want to buy the Power-2000 battery, just wanted to know if it is charegable with the default Xm2 battery charger?

Cheers
Aaron

Yes, it is.

Ok, this may sound silly...but are the attachments for the batteries like the power-2000 and BP-945 identical from say an XM2 to a GL2? Will either battery fit on either spec camera? It would be idiotic to have them different, but you know how product design works sometimes and I want to make sure before I order from the U.S.

Cheers

Aaron,
The Power 2000 battery is physically and functionally compatible with the BP-945 in absolutely every manner and either battery will run either camera. The Power 2000 just packs a significantly longer-lasting charge than the BP.

Hi guys,

I'm currently looking at an Anton Bauer battery set for my XL1. Why? Because these are batteries that are barely depletable, and you can attach and feed one of their camera lights from them, at the same time as the camera.

Has any of you ever used them? I can't find info on the Watchdog. Some user experience would be appreciated.

Thanks,

I need to pick up some extra batteries for my XL1S and was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for or against any brand or types.


See a number of them out there other then the standard (and more expensive) Canon brand and was figured someone here had to have some experiences.


TIA

I'm using a couple of Lenmar batteries; from our sponsor Pro-Tape (see www.dvinfo.net/sponsors)

I also use Lenmar Batteries http://www.lenmar.com/ and their Mach 1 Fast Charger. I've been very pleased with their performance.

Jeff

The Lenmars have a great reputation. (Jeff link is busted: try http://www.lenmar.com/)

Alternatively, I've been using Power-2000 BP-945-equivalents for nearly 2 years. Very long-lasting (much longer that the Canon brand), no apparent memory problems or significant capacity dissipation over time. They charge from the standard Canon BP chargers.

Welcome aboard Jan! I think this might be what you are looking
for (although I'm not 100% sure):

http://www.aspenelectronics.com/aspen_products/specialized/xl7a.htm

I did a search (using the search feature off this board) and found
this thread where the above URL came from:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2407&highlight=Bauer

Hope this will help you some, and hi from your "neighbour"!

Somehow that top link seems not to be working anymore (it
returns a 404 not found now), which is weird. You could go to
their main site and contact them regarding such an adapter
though.

I could not find the adapter when browsing through their
catalog either. Perhaps it has been discontinued.

Good luck.

The link works for me.
You aren't using one of those "Mac" things, are you?

No Mac for me... Only PC! Still not working here somehow. This
is very strange!

Same here. That Aspen link doesn't show anything. Oh well, I found some user stories. Still strange Chris doesn't have any on the site itself.

Just FYI, we offer both the Shoulder Brace designed specifically for the AB batteries, and a stand alone DC Converter with the industery standard XLR input, Canon DC plug output.
http://www.dolgin.net/PowerBrace_Gold.htm
http://www.dolgin.net/DCConverter.htm
While the converter LEDs normally indicate the 12V levels, they can be set to 14.4V levels per request (no charge)
Alex Dolgin
Dolgin Engineering

Thanks for the heads up on that Alex!

Thanks for the tips guys, especially the recommendation for the Power-2000 ones (which are also advertised as from VidPro it seems).

I've seen them around but am always leery of "never heard of them" brands even at good prices but I just picked a couple of them up. Thx.

Any Brits in here know a good places or websites to buy cheap [but not cheap and nasty] batteries for the XL1s???