Woody Meristem wrote:
Just a quick note about the life of the batteries in three of my camera traps. They were out in the field from May 25 until September 28 when I changed the cards and batteries in all three. All builds had Bigfoot boards powered by three rechargable AAA batteries; the cameras (two Sony S40s and an S600) were powered by rechargable AAs (two in the camera and six externals). The batteries were a mixture of Imedion and Amazon 2400 mah rechargeables. When the cameras were checked they were all still taking photos; one had well over 1,000 photos on the card, the others between 400 and 600.
I've never tested the absolute maximum longevity of AA rechargeables in a build, but I'm impressed by these batteries.
I've used 3 x "AAA" NiMH Amazon batteries (Japanese cells) in the BF boards and got about 2 months before they had to be changed. My tester showed that there was 20% power remaining at that point. I talked to Gary prior to using 3 x rechargeables (3.6v) as opposed to 3 x alkalines (4.5v). He said that they should work but may not last as long, that's all. So his assumption was spot on with my results. The runtime for 8 x "AA" 2400 mah batteries does not surprise me at all, judging by my own experiences that is. So if those "AAA" cells are doing that well for you. I would certainly be pleased as punch with those results. I almost wonder if some BF boards just work better than some others. Different parts suppliers, unannounced upgrades to components, better soldering etc, etc. I think that you may have a very unique board Woody. Then again, I may just have a few odd boards.....who knows.
I once had an S600 w BF board and the cam had 6 x "AA" NiMH Envelopes 1900 mAh batteries powering them. The BF board finally gave up the ghost for some reason (6 years old) and that caused the board to go wonky. Made the cam fire off 600+ pics with flash before the cam's power died. I was surprised that the cam was able to fire off that many flash pics given the power supply.
Maybe Codger has some testimonials he can share with us. I recall that he uses S600's and has left them for very long extended periods of time. I don't know what board or batteries or how many that he was using though.