thanks Adrian that was the problem, it is working now.

Yeah, it usually is something simple. It's a pretty reliable camera, and most problems are often user error.

Suggestions on battery belts
 

I have added accessories and will be doing longer on location shoots now I realize I will need more/longer battery power.

I looked at B&H's selection and got a little confused. I think the batteries I use on the camera are 7.v but the belts seem to say 12 volts? Also what chargers or connectors should I worry about, there is a rather large selection.

I need roughly 6 to 7 hours worth of power for on location shoots. (large building no power). The only other accessory is a 5"Nebtek monitor mounted on the camera, that I hope to connect also.

Suggestions on good belts and where to buy very much appreciated.

Thanks in advance
—Lia

Hello Lia,

Indeed, the XL1 uses a 7.2 volt power supply. Larger cameras and lighting gear often use a 12 volt supply.

I'd recommend getting the Canon CH-910 dual battery charger/holder. As its name implies, it can hold (and charge) 2 batteries simultaneously. It has a belt clip (just don't forget you're wearing it when you walk away from the camera <g>). You can also mount it to the back of the camera if you have an MA-100 or MA-200 adapter.

I'd also recommend the Power 2000 high-capacity batteries (if you can find them). These are BP-945 replacements that feature 6000 mAh of power (vs the Canon BP-945's 4500 mAh). If you can't find them, the Canon BP-945's will be fine. (I think others found yet another brand, but I don't recall what it was.)

The Nebtek monitor uses the same batteries as your XL1 so that should be no problem. Since it sips power you can use a lower capacity battery for that.

Where to buy? ZGC (one of our site's sponsors) is an excellent source for this gear. B&H is also a highly reputable supplier.

One last tip. It sounds like you'll be in a challenging location. If you need power for other stuff take a look at

http://www.store4power.com/

They have a variety of portable batteries (with inverters) which can be really handy if you don't want to deal with a noisy, smelly generator. Very reasonably priced, too. I've used one of their Jazz Portable Power 250 units to run a Lowel caselight 4. These are also handy gizmos to have around the house for power outages.

Good luck on your shoot, Lia!

You might want to check out NRG Research at the following URL:

http://www.nrgresearch.com/pp.html

scroll down the page to the professional power belts. don't know if that's what you're looking for . . .

You might want to check the following thread:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1702&highlight=battery+adapter

12v adapters are discussed there.

Great reply's
 

I will look into the links suggested.

I'm hoping to power the camera 7v and the Nebtek monitor 12v at the same time, but not nessarily on same battery. Some kind of belt combination. I am shooting in a 560.000 sg ft building with no power inside (yet). I called Nebtek and they said they will look into it too.

These boards are great. I think it says someting about the quality of folks shooting video and willing to build community I don't think you'd find a better bunch anywhere!

A big THANK you!

Lia

Lia, when you call Nebtek, be sure to speak to Rob DuBree. He knows me personally and is a member of the boards here. Thanks and looking forward to your input,

Yep I did...
 

Great guy, he mentioned you too...now off to a shoot up in Lake County, better informed and better equipped thanks to you know who.


—Lia

Hi Lia,

Since your monitor is 12v it sounds like the XL7A adapter from www.aspenelectronics.com is just what you are looking for. With it you can power everything with one 12v battery.

Keep in mind that while using some of the external 7.2V converters you would loose the benefit of the VF "fuel gauge". The camera thinks that it is powered by the external AC power supply/charger and disables the icon.
Alex Dolgin
Dolgin Engineering
http://www.dolgin.net

I cannot afford Anton Bauer batts on my best day. So I got in touch with Doug at Long Valley Equipment about his DeWalt battery rigs. He is working on a set-up for the XL1 for me. I am really stoked as his adapters are pretty bomb-proof and totally affordable compared to A.B. offerings. They are also 12v so you can run OCL's or a TFT off of them as well! Will let you know how his solution works out.

I use an NRG belt and recommend them (and I have put mine through hell). The belt I use has a set-up where the battery itself actually velcro's to the belt and then XLR's into a connector box. That way you can swap batteries off and on the belt so you don't have to deal with disconnecting the belt from accessories and the camera. I dunno if other manufacturers' belts offer this but it is a nice feature that comes in handy all the time. they also have a "fuel gauge" so you have some idea of where you stand battery-life wise.

Backup battery burned out 4 times within 4 months
 

I purchased XL1s PAL through ZGC in February, 2002.
A tiny little backup battery was burned out within a week.
I'd replaced them 3 times already.
When I don't use the cam, I turned it off and a fully charged BP-945 battery was in the cam.
Chris (ZGC) is looking for Cannon contact.
Has anyone have this experience?

I am sending it to Cannon Factory Service in NJ
 

I got a Cannon contact from Chris (ZGC).
I am sending my cam to Cannon Factory Service in NJ.
I hope they can fix it.

Sounds like a short somewhere. Keep us advised as to what happens with your camera.

Canon says don't leave a battery on the camera when your not using it. The battery will trickle discharge. If you try to open the tape transport, with the battery on the camera, with the camera in the "off" position, the door will open and the tape transport will come out. This tells or proves to you that the battery is always "on" and ready. Now take the battery off the camera and try the same thing. Result: the door opens but the tape transport will not pop out. If you leave the batt on the camera for a week, it's been "everyready" waiting for you to put in a tape and therefor has been discharging 24/7.

That's one possibility.....
The other possibility is you have an xl-1s with a problem.

Are you talking about the MAIN battery now or about the BACKUP
(the little on) battery? I'm assuming that since your tape door
opens when you leave your battery on the camera you are
talking about the MAIN battery? Steve, I think, was talking about
that little backup battery that makes sure your time and other
settings are remembered.

Bad service from Canon XL1S repair in Jamesburg, NJ
 

Saga contiunes...

XL1S repair in NJ received my XL1S PAL in Tuesday morning according to FedEx tracking. I have not received any response from them and called them today (Friday 6/28/02).
They said that according to their testing, there is no problem in the cam and they shipped it back to me. I was upset that they didn't even call me to explain how they tested and ask me more about the problem.

My problem (as you may already read about):
I bought my XL1S PAL from Canon UK through ZGC in February, 2002. The original battery burned out within a few days and I called ZGC. They cannot explain why it happened. And I thought I just had a bad battery from Canon and replaced it with the one by RadioShack and things worked fine for 2 months.

In May, 2002, I found the backup battery burned out again, put a new one and it was burned out 10 days later and I replace it again. Same thing happened a week later.

I sent the cam to Canon XL1 Repair, Jamesburg, NJ a week ago.
The Canon repairman was not able to find the problem and concluded there is not problem in my cam and returned it to me.

I should have asked them to keep the cam with a new backup battery at least 2 weeks to find how the backup battery is drained so quickly. Canon rep said they usually don't keep the cam for repair that long period time. According to my experience with the problem, they cannot regenerate the problem unless they keep it as least 2 weeks during the battery drain.

Canon rep. suggested me to return my cam to Canon Repair and let the head technician take care of this problem. I will do that.

I am not sure what to do if they cannot fix the problem again.
Any advice?

PS: I apprecite Chris at ZGC for the help.

Chris at ZGC is indeed awesome.

Was Canon Service in Irvine aware that this was a PAL unit? I think you should take them up on their offer to send it back in. The head tech is (I think) Jerry Sullivan. I'm not sure but I thought all PAL units go to the UK for service issues.

I'm willing to bet the problems lies in some form of incompatibility between the Panasonic CR2025 back-up battery and the PAL version of the XL1. It may require some other battery type? Send it back and make sure they know it's a PAL unit.

Don't give up on the Service facility just yet. Keep trying and good luck,

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

Voltage: before and after XL1S PAL
 

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

Using adaptor same time as charging battery?
 

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

I'm a dumbass
 

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

Battery Packs
 

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.

About that TFT
 

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

Battery life?
 

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