Travelling and Canon Battery Packs

[shay]

I'll be travelling to places with no electricity.

Thinking of buying/renting Canon battery packs (BP511 for G2) just for the trip, and sell them after that.

Anyone has any lobang where to buy cheap or anyone want to rent? Or anyone interested in used once battery packs after I'm back?

Want from Mid March to Early April, so thinking of getting 5 extra battery packs which can last me about 800-1000 photos.

Thanks!

[Jer76]

BP511? 3rd party one can get for $45 at Photoguide peninsular

[shay]

ya... was thinking of getting the 3rd party ones, so much cheaper. read somewhere b4 they can get them at $40.

Anyone still knows where to get them that cheap? or even cheaper?

Thanks!

[zekai]

3rd party one can get at $28 AP if not $30

[shay]

cool! it's even better than expected! at that price maybe can afford even more bats!

anyone interested in taking over from me for your travels??

[zekai]

Quote: Originally posted by shay cool! it's even better than expected! at that price maybe can afford even more bats! anyone interested in taking over from me for your travels??

interested coz i got a long trip to china in june but i scared wait the batt you give me is koyak one how.

not that i dun trust you, I am just trying to be careful. Maybe we can work out an arrangement.

I got 2 currently

you can pm me or e-mail me at alex@tan-family.net

[Nick]

I can take over 1 or 2 of your battery pack if you want. PM me about the pricing. Thanks!

[shay]

thanks for the response! tell you guys what... just email me what you think is a fair price and number of bat you want. highest bidder can have his pick first and how ever many he wants. second highest bidder then has a go and so forth... fair?

i guess there's no guarantee other than my reputation at stake. maybe you can get some assurance that i was an auditor with a Big4 firm and we gotta have SOME ethics!

what's a fair pricing? i guess we can consider the discount to be my "rental" for the month. what would you pay to "rent" the batteries? $5? this you have to decide in your bid.

pls remember, i'll probably only recharge these max of TWICE! once to test the battery, and another right before i'm on my trip! after that my trip is over and no more use liao...

after zekai's china trip or whatever, i guess you could sell them to the next guy since you prob won't need so many.

cheers!

[chriszzz]

Quote: Originally posted by shay I'll be travelling to places with no electricity. Thinking of buying/renting Canon battery packs (BP511 for G2) just for the trip, and sell them after that. Anyone has any lobang where to buy cheap or anyone want to rent? Or anyone interested in used once battery packs after I'm back? Want from Mid March to Early April, so thinking of getting 5 extra battery packs which can last me about 800-1000 photos. Thanks!

Be careful there. 6 batteries might theoretically give you 1000 photos, but it really depends on how you use the camera, and if you use the LCD a lot. On the G3, you really don't have a choice since the viewfinder is pretty useless, so you have to use the LCD alot. The last time I went travelling, a fully charged battery lasted my G3 less than 1 day with heavy use. Good thing I had a spare.

Remember also that rechargable batteries lose their charge over time, and in a matter of days, your freshly charge batteries could lose 20-50% of their charge. Then you will be screwed without any means to recharge.

I would instead advice you to bring some backup - a old film camera that does not require batteries, or something that uses AA or 2CR5 batteries that you can bring with you, and which does not consume power greedily like a digicam does.

Or how about a A40 or Minolta F100/F300 that takes AA batteries, and buy a bunch of lithium AA batts. These lithiums should last quite a while (unlike alkalines). The advantage is that they won't lose their charge like rechargables do.
Probably cost you much less than 2 spare BP511 batteries too.

[shay]

point noted! ya... i guess those are very rough estimates. with a G2, its tough going back to A40, not that i have access to one way!

what i'll do is try it here with full LCD, then multiply by 80% to take in account of the temperature, then by 80% due to weakening charge over 2 weeks. i dun have elec for only 2 weeks.

my experience with my lithium pack is the charge remains for quite some time, weeks and still the charge is there.

what i'm worries is my x-drive running outta battery! so need to bring a battery pack for it.

cheers!

[Goondu]

Just a thought, if you charge all your batteries the night before, wouldn't the batteries discharged itself over the period of time?
You may have to take that into account too.

Quote: Originally posted by shay ... i guess there's no guarantee other than my reputation at stake. maybe you can get some assurance that i was an auditor with a Big4 firm and we gotta have SOME ethics! ...

Hopefully, not Arthur Anderson.

(Sorry, but I really can't resist this)

[shay]

haha... if you read carefully, i said Big 4, not former Big 5. AA is not part of the Big 4.

but to be fair, you can't assume the failure of AA is due to lack of ethics, and definitely can't generalise that about all AA auditors even if its true. back to the topic...

the weakening of charge or discharge over time was mentioned by chris and i've already taken that into account in the equation by the 0.80 multiplier. (there were 2 multipliers)

note that i dun have anything concrete to base 80% on, but that's from my personal experience with the batteries. i fully charge and store them sometimes in the camera for few weeks, and when i refresh charge them, they fully charge very quickly.

plus if i don't leave them in the camera, they will contain their charge even longer!

[Lensman]

Newbie of an S40 here.

Can I ask ?

I have 1 battery that come with the pack. And I like to buy a spare.

The chap at the shops says buy original, "better".

Heard from another friend that the "cheong" / aftermarket batteries, have bigger capacity and cost just about the same, if not cheaper.

Is this true ?

What are the OEM that you have tried with and the lifespan of it ? Price range ?

Thanks

[chriszzz]

How about this :

http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/5a68/


Looks interesting. Don't plug it directly into your G2, but with a little soldering, you could probably make a DIY battery charger for your BP511 battery. And it costs less then your 5 spare batteries.

[shay]

THanks for the input. yup, saw those before and considered them. but still costs more than 5 batteries (5xS$30).

prob is not the cost but the charging. you need some electronics knowledge to rig up something to make sure there is no reverse flowing of the current when the sun is out. plus it may not be the right voltage, etc...

frankly i'm no electrical engineer so dunno how to do it! haha...
it might just be a simple circuit for all i know!

anyone with EE background wanna shed some light into it??

[zekai]

I offer a price equivalent to 65% of lowest market price at the time I take over the batt from you.

I may need to rent the x-drive from you too... haha

[shay]

hmm... quite frankly i consider that too low, at $30, that's $10 just for using them ONCE!

i'll think about it with respect to other offers. Anyone else interested, please feel free to PM me!

if anyone was to confirm their interest and wants a guarantee that i'm not swapped the batteries, we can get them together and you can mark it with your indelible ink to ensure its the new one i'm giving you.

besides it's difficult to determine what's the LOWEST market price, unless couple of the better known places are selling at around the same price. lets say maybe AP, MS and few otehr shops all sell around 28-30.

[shay]

hi lens man, frankly all i've tried are the originals. never tried an OEM, but from the posts i've been reading, they are worth considering the price ratio, even if their capacities may be over-estimated.

problem may be their quality of construction, how long the battery will last and how many times they can recharge.

even then, they may still be worth it! i think the shop trying to earn more $$ from you.

[chriszzz]

Quote: Originally posted by shay besides it's difficult to determine what's the LOWEST market price, unless couple of the better known places are selling at around the same price. lets say maybe AP, MS and few otehr shops all sell around 28-30.

Bought a Megapower BP511 from AP for $35 in January.

[chriszzz]

Quote: Originally posted by shay hi lens man, frankly all i've tried are the originals. never tried an OEM, but from the posts i've been reading, they are worth considering the price ratio, even if their capacities may be over-estimated. problem may be their quality of construction, how long the battery will last and how many times they can recharge. even then, they may still be worth it! i think the shop trying to earn more $$ from you.

From the physical construction ( don't know about the electrical or chemical construction ) and from usage and charging point of view, the OEM ones are as good as the original. Anyway, I think batteries aren't exactly rocket science products that is limited to hi-tech companies. Besides, Canon doesn't make their own batteries. They too OEM it from someone else.