K-x owners: NiMH batteries results please - Page 5

blu3ness · 11-02-2009, 04:06 PM

you held up your principles.. i just bowed down and went along with a black one.. haha :P, nice ot hear you don't have the battery problem. nice.

Eruditass · 11-02-2009, 04:12 PM

I am very happy with white! I was going back and forth even after I ordered it. I ended up showing some co-workers that were a mixed bag from the pictures. They say it looks more utilitarian than pictures showed and quite like it.

rawr · 11-02-2009, 04:20 PM

Originally Posted by Eruditass

I am very happy with white! I was going back and forth even after I ordered it. I ended up showing some co-workers that were a mixed bag from the pictures. They say it looks more utilitarian than pictures showed and quite like it.

Well, pls show us a picture of your new Storm Trooper K-x. I am slightly jealous.

lukevega · 11-02-2009, 04:48 PM

Originally Posted by Eruditass

I received mine today. Been playing with it for a couple hours with duracell pre-charged white-top (duraloops) - Live View, Video, etc. Full green bar the whole time.

I'm thinkin bad batch, (un)fortunately. I hope Pentax will do justice to what seems like improper quality control.

who/what site/store did you get your white k-x from?

Eruditass · 11-02-2009, 05:14 PM

Tiger Direct, I will take some pictures of it later but through a mirror - only got 1 camera!

I've tried a bunch of other batteries.. some that aren't too old give me the battery depleted, or near empty, some show 1/2 empty, then later show full. They are all at various levels of charges, though, but the half depleted then full is odd, and then not turning on at all - all with same set.

Will try to do more tests later, gotta go play a pool match, don't think I will be taking it there since I can't keep an eye on it and pool halls are VERY dusty.

One good thing is the center AF button rocks - you can push it, and then use the keypad and select which AF point and shoot, all without hitting OK. I will be quite happy for sports.

jk333 · 11-02-2009, 10:54 PM

Get eneloops. Jeez. Its not hard. Set the camera to NiMH, and get eneloops.

Amazon.com: Sanyo Eneloop 4 Pack AA NiMH Pre-Charged Rechargable Batteries w/ Charger: Electronics

$17 bucks for 4 with a charger. CHEAP.
Or, a 4 pack $9.91 - Amazon.com: Sanyo Eneloop AAA NiMH Pre-Charged Rechargeable Batteries (4 Pack): Electronics

Dont use whatever it is your using, just get eneloops, set camera, wait... done.

Eruditass · 11-02-2009, 11:43 PM

Originally Posted by jk333

Get eneloops. Jeez. Its not hard. Set the camera to NiMH, and get eneloops.

Amazon.com: Sanyo Eneloop 4 Pack AA NiMH Pre-Charged Rechargable Batteries w/ Charger: Electronics

$17 bucks for 4 with a charger. CHEAP.
Or, a 4 pack $9.91 - Amazon.com: Sanyo Eneloop AAA NiMH Pre-Charged Rechargeable Batteries (4 Pack): Electronics

Dont use whatever it is your using, just get eneloops, set camera, wait... done.

the people having problems also have them with eneloops. And non eneloops do actually work just fine with this camera:

- duracell precharged (black top and white top - rayovac hybrids and eneloop rebadges) 2000 mAH
- Kodak 2500mAH digital camera non-LSD
- "Digipower" 2700 NiMH non-LSD

they all have been bought in the last year or 2. The K-x is quite picky though - if I don't wait long enough after putting them in, sometimes it just doesn't turn on. Many times when I turn on it is a red blank indicator - I've found that if I switch on LiveView, it goes to 100% green, and switch out, 100% green still after using LV and Video and taking many pictures with flash.

Batteries that didn't work - red indicator and battery depleted message:
- 5+ year old Energizer 2650 mAH

If you get red indiactors, battery depleted when you try to go into LiveView with new batteries, exchange.

zxaar · 11-04-2009, 06:24 AM

I did a small test. And here are my results:

My batteries are
panasonic hhr - 3mps, nimh type 1.2 V
min 2000 mAh

i took fully charged set of batteries.

Took 4gb memory card, set camera to 2mp jpeg file size.
and focus to manual mode. Av priority.

Memory card was showing that more than 3000 pics could come into it, so my plan was to randomly click until batteries die away.

So as planed i clicked randomly. Here are results:

after 1090 photos or clicks, batteries are still green.
i used live view for roughly 50 - 100 photos in them.

Since battery indicator showing fully green. I assume that at least my cam has no issues.

Make what you wish out of it. just sharing exp.

ps: will post the same at dpr too, might be help.

tomtor · 11-05-2009, 01:16 AM

I've used three sets of batteries with excellent results, but I think the firmware could have some improvements. The main issues arise when you insert new batteries and the old removed set was still not empty (showing green or orange).

I've never used the supplied lithiums and my first set were Varta 2500 mah a week ago.

After 180 images (much liveview and 5 minutes video) I got the first orange sign. 70 images later still orange but I decided to switch the batteries because I was going out on a shoot.

Now, exactly a week later I try the same orginal Varta set which has been recharged. I removed the Duracell 2000mah hybrids (which have shown first orange after 100 shots but which were showing green again before I removed them) and had trouble getting started with the Varta 2500. These batteries had excellent performance one week ago, so I knew it should be possible to get them going.

I placed them, waited a few minutes, turned on: camera did not start.
Turn it off wait 5 seconds, turn it on: red battery.

Turned it off, opened battery door, waited 5 seconds, closed it, waited 30 seconds, turned it on: orange baterry. Used liveview, battery indicator goes green and stays that way till now.

I'm sure that now I've obtained the green status, this set will work well for about 500 images without much liveview or video.

Tips:

As has been observed before, when you get orange after loading batteries, try using LV to see if it turns green.

If you get red or no response, try turning it off and open/close the battery door and wait about 30 seconds and turn it on again.

I think these rituals are only needed if you replace your batteries when the old set was still doing good.

Eruditass · 11-05-2009, 09:32 AM

Thanks for your impressions, everyone's K-x is indeed finicky at times but don't exhibit the same problems that others have.

Also, in case anyone wanted a good cheap smart independent channel charger - check out the soshine sc-c3:

Soshine SC-C3 Intelligent Rapid Charger - CandlePowerForums

$14 shipped (will take a while to get here):
DealExtreme: $13.98 Soshine Hi-Tech LCD NiMH / NiCD Super Quick Charger

UnknownVT: Do you still think this is a good charger?

Finger · 11-06-2009, 05:47 PM

No problems with eneloops (rebranded as duracell) here. 300 pictures with some flash, live view.
Edit: SN is 3432###, 18-55 50-200 kit from newegg.

wll · 11-07-2009, 04:11 AM

Both K-x's started with the ser # 343 .........

I kept the second camera, I'm waiting for a firmware upgrade (or a recall).

Lithiums work, my rechargeable Rayovacs do not. The Rayovacs work in every other camera I have including my 2 K200D's, Ds's and Pentax P&S cameras perfectly.

wll

Eruditass · 11-07-2009, 10:05 AM

How old are they? The K-x is definitely more picky than the K2000. Have you done a refresh (complete discharge ie with a flashlight). If you have a discharge charger, report the mAh it says after discharging. Some from years ago are only holding ~500 mAh (can't be measured by voltage).

Have you tried new pre-charged rayovacs/duracell/eneloops?

If you check DPR, someone used livechat and they told him to send it to the service center in AZ.

These work for me (bought in the last year) with no problems at all:

- duracell precharged (black top and white top - rayovac hybrids and eneloop rebadges) 2000 mAH
- Kodak 2500mAH digital camera non-LSD
- "Digipower" 2700 NiMH non-LSD

tomtor · 11-07-2009, 12:53 PM

My varta 2100 black top hybrid set did not work (6 months old, seldom used) and guess what. I've just run the set in my charger through the capacity test cycle and one of the set has 3 times the internal resistance of the others.

So the K-X makes an excellent battery tester :-)

I've also said it on the dpreview thread, I do not get the people who just don't buy a set of eneloops and a good charger, but instead keep complaining that their batteries work in other devices and should work in the K-X as well...

jup · 11-09-2009, 03:43 AM

I can pretty much confirm that K-x I got in Czech Republic is more picky then my old K100D or generally anything I've ever seen.

However, with proper batteries, it seems to work, so at least for now, I am not putting my serial number to either list.

I do have inteligent charger that I use solely for my NiMH batteries, so they should be in pretty good state. It also tells me how much energy goes into each charge so I would know if some battery would start failing or so.

My experience insofar:

Doesn't work:

Energizer NiMH 2650 mAh (about 18 months old) - freshly charged, with about 2,6mAh going into each batter, worked for about 30 shots before battery depleted. No magic I was able to perform persuaded K-x to use it afterwards. Works without problems in K100D (and normally gives few hundred shots).
Conrad (NoName) NiMH 2500 mAh (may be 3 year old). Charged and capacity tested (all withing reasonable range of 2,5 Ah), fails to boot at all. Again, while it's no name, capacity wise it's just fine and works in K100D

Does work:

Freshly bought precharged Sanyo Eneloop - Gave me around 350 shots before giving up, that with heavy playing around with menus and some movies. And maybe even more importantly then number of shots - batteries were really depleted when they came out of camera. My charger was able to extract something like 20-30mAh from each of them before reaching terminal voltage of 0,9V. This means that K-x was able to use all the power that was in the batteries. Besides, I've heard somewhere that Eneloops are not precharged to full capacity, so I expect 2nd cycle to be even better.

As a side note, the open circuit voltage of non working Energizer was actually considerably higher then of working (albeit almost depleted) Eneloops, so camera definitely doesn't use open circuit voltage measurement to determine state and type of battery. On the contrary, it seems to test battery under quite heavy load, and older batteries, even with enough energy remaining, just fail this test. It's also the area where Eneloops, at least according to Sanyo claims, are even better then ordinary NiMH batteries - maintaining voltage even under heavy load. So it's not that big suprise that they work.

So my conclusion so far - I am pretty sure that at least some of the battery problems are cause by using old batteries (which just can't maintain voltage under load), or batteries charged with bad chargers (this destroys NiMH incredibly quickly). This, still, may be a problem for some - Pentax claims that camera works with NiMH batteries, and it obviously does only with some. But for me, I'll be quite happy to use Eneloops or similar. This camera is excellent, and 2 sets of Eneloops are still much cheaper then proprietary battery for most other cameras. Besides, I love the posibility to just use Lithiums for longer trips.