In a message dated 6/6/02 11:44:46 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
writes:
> Most of my work I'm near enough to a car to recharge batteries from it.
>
Dear Walt,
Are these much different from the Maha MH-C777 charger? I use it and it see=
ms
to work well, but the connector that they sent for the car failed after a f=
ew
days.
Do you charge from the car with the engine off? I am told that the charger=
does not use much energy and this is OK?
Thanks for your help,
John
John V. Moore Nature Recordings
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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>From Tue Mar 8 18:22:25 2005
Message: 4
Date: Thu, 06 Jun 2002 14:33:07 -0400
From: Walter Knapp <>
Subject: Re: intro and HHB help
suzanne gibson wrote:
> Intro to me is that I'm a freelance radio producer -
> not a nature recordist - but alot of my work is
> outdoor and on location - which is in far North
> Queensland in Australia ... anyway - I regularly read
> your groups as you have the best technical/tecnhique
> discussions and seem to be the only people who use the
> pro HHB Portadisc that I do ... I can only guess that
> Sony run the minidisc sites ... but anyway there's my
> story and here's my request ...
Few in the minidisc sites are willing to spend the money for the
Portadisc. And their needs are different, if out recording portable it's
often stealth recording of music concerts. Very hard to hide a Portadisc
in a pocket.
> Its about battery life on the HHB. In my case its
> really crap ...I'm using the rechargable Fujitsu
> battery's that came with the kit and I reckon I'm
> getting 50" max - less from pro cells standards. Any
> ideas on best batteries - I do alot of remote field
> work and I'm finding I have to use my little Sony MD
> as I can't rely on the HHB to get me through a decent
> session.
I'm currently using GT 1800 mah AA NIMH in mine. That's enough to record
three disks straight through, or several hours of on and off work. The
original batteries here were 1550 mah, and seemed a bit weak even for
that rating. I switched almost immediately to Kodak 1600 mah, which
would almost record three disks straight through. When tested I'd get
close to 200 minutes record time from them on straight through. The
original batteries got demoted to running headlamps and camera flash.
Since I'm recording mostly at night, I carry many dozens of batteries
for everything. The 1800 mah batteries are a pretty recent development
and I got some to try about a month ago, there are several brands.
Here's a link to where I get mine, don't know how you would do in
Australia, these folks would have to be contacted directly to see if you
could get them to ship:
http://4gdo.com/products.htm
In addition note that the power input on the Portadisc is rated 12-14
vdc, and that HHb does make a car cord for it. You could probably come
up with a adapter cord to connect one of the belt pac video battery
systems too. That would give you considerable longer time.
Most of my work I'm near enough to a car to recharge batteries from it.
I carry two Maha C204F chargers. They are fast chargers and have a
optional car plug. Those chargers could in nearly all circumstances keep
up with my recording. I carry the 2nd battery pac with another set of
the 1800 mah batteries fully charged in it too. Some others carry a
third pac. The battery pac is not very heavy or bulky, though they are a
bit vulnerable to mechanical damage.
If you are only getting 50 minutes max I guess you are one of those that
runs around with the Portadisc on record pause a lot. Are you also using
phantom power mics? Those are using the battery on record pause. It does
appear to draw slightly less when paused but not a lot different. All I
can say about lots of record pause is to make sure you really need to do
that as much as you do. You have to count record pause time in your
total battery life. I expect when you do that you will find you are
getting more than three hours, it's rated record time.
In the system settings there is a setting for digital output. If that's
on you are powering the digital out and it's led, it's not a lot of
draw, but I always set it off except when transferring recordings to the
mac. Maybe gives a few more minutes.
> Could my headphones be dragging the power? They're a
> Senheiser HD 220 from memory ... ??
I use a pair of Sony MDR-V900's with no problem. For most headphones
it's only a few mw at normal listening levels.
Walt
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