[commo]

I got my kx yesterday from B&H, installed lithiums and messed around with camera for quite awhile trying all the settings.

Today I got my 4 precharged eneloops from Amazon.

Turned off camera, put in eneloops, waited 1 minute.

Turned on camera, had half a green battery bar, changed settings to nimh, took a few pictures using live view. Bar went to all green.

Kinda off topic, but i'll mention it anyway, Sams Club has 12 energizer lithiums for $20 right now in store, pretty good deal i thought.

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Last edited by commo; 11-24-2009 at 07:14 PM.

[OutOfFocus]

I'm testing another set of old batteries (Energizer 1850 mAh) and used them until the camera turned off. Then I waited a while, and the camera turned on again for a few more shots. I did this a few more times until the camera displayed "batteries depleted" immediately.

Average voltages under different loads were:

Code:

Ohms  Volts
Open  1.35
3.3   1.29
0.77  1.12
0.43  1.00

The average current draw (not in LV/Video) must be much less than 2 amps, but perhaps for short periods it does exceed that. For instance, just after taking the photo, it's busy computing the JPG, recharging the flash (if used), writing the JPG to the memory card, displaying the photo just taken etc. It would take very little more load to drop the voltage below 0.9 volts (a reasonable cut off point for NiMH under high load - no idea if that's what the K-x uses).

I also tested these batteries under both "Auto Battery" and "NiMH" modes. The display indicated a higher charge state for longer under "Auto Battery" mode, but the "refuse to turn on" point was either the same or very very similar.

[jumpz]

I was not very technical in this. When I got my K-X a few weeks back. I tried using the Sanyo eneloops that came with it. It was set to "Auto". It showed the low battery state very quickly.

But was fine after switching to "NiMh" . Have used it for a couple of days and no issue.

Looks like it could be a batch problem issue with the K-X

[nicholas621]

Thanks for the "tricks" update . There's just too much loop to jump around just to get some of the batteries to work .

[Eruditass]

exactly, my hope is it will keep those that are about ready to give up around as a Pentax emlpoyee has hinted at a Pentax address soon.

[opiedog]

i sent you an IM on my K-x. anyway, here's a summary:
SN 3434xxxx - usa

works w/ eneloop, panasonic 2100mah NiMh

didn't work w/ sanyo 2500 nimh - had to use the LV trick, but once camera is off, doesn't turn back on.


seems to work better when battery is set to Auto vs NiMh

haven't tested the Lithium Ions yet or NiZn's yet, but don't anticipate any problems w/ these.

update:

with eneloops, meter turned orange after a few minutes of video and about 20-30 shots. they still worked, but i wasn't taking chances so i
switched to NiZn's. 120 shots. green bar so far...




tnx

[pjr]

I was having battery issues with K-x.. tried

Duracell 2650mAh - Didn't start K-x.. charged them fully and tried, this time they started but lasted for few shots may be 40-50 shots.

Camilion AlwaysReady - Brand new.. had to recharge them to start K-x...they did a little better. May be 6min video and 100 shots..after that I had to switch off and on camera to get few shots then it switches off.

Finally I bought these ..they arrived today.
Rechargeable Batteries & Battery Chargers - Card Nimh AA 2300mAh Ready To Use (R2U) Rechargeable Batteries, 4xAA

Had problem when I first changed to these batteries.. K-x didn't start up, so had to recharge the batteries. After 30 seconds wait K-x starts up.
These are the best so far. 18min video...100 shots.. playback, crossprocessing, so far the indicator is still green

I hope these continue working like this.

[HogRider]

Received a K-x 2 days ago. I put in a set of Rayovac Hybrids right away. (Used, and not holding up well in the DS). The camera booted up and showed orange. I went through menus and set time, date etc and after about 10 minutes of playing it went to red and I turned it off. When I turned it back on it said Battery depleted. Battery detection was set to auto.

So I put in a set of Sanyo Eneloops. Waited 1 minute. They had been used in another camera once or twice, but haven't been charged a single time yet. They are almost two years old so I assume they were about 80% full.
The camera came on green and after I played with it for about an hour - live view etc - it went to orange.

Now it is still orange and I have taken a video and shot about 70 pictures and spent endless time going through all the custom settings etc.

Seems like it works fine with the Eneloops. I haven't even bothered to put in the supplied Lithiums. My serial number is 343XXXX

[OutOfFocus]

My old Energizer 1850's are fully charged. In NiMH mode, I get a red indicator. If I change to Auto mode, press LV, the indicator turns green. If I change back to NiMH, press LV, indicator goes red again. I repeated this several times. (To be clear, this was done without turning the camera off.)

[UnknownVT]

New Kx received on Tues Nov/24/2009 from NewEgg.com.

Serial # 34348XX

Initial problems -
First use with eneloops (Maha C9000 charger)
stored ~1.5 months unused from full charge.

Initial half orange battery - used Kx for set up etc - shocked to see Red empty battery then actually depleted and powering off.

Replaced with another topped-up (Maha C9000 charger) set of eneloop - finally Green battery signal
then all seemed well from there - made sure I set the battery type to NiMH.

BUT possible battery life/shot count problem(?) -

Half orange - after about 370 shots (of admittedly lots of initial playing around - lots of initial flash shots a few Liveview trials - but NO movies).

Red (near empty) at about 570 shots (of much more normal usage, NO movies, mostly about 50% flash).

Shot count so far seems low -
these eneloops have been used in K100D notorious for being fussy with batteries - and I get over 1,000 shots with a set - mostly at about 1-2 months of storage from charge (like the set I started the Kx with).

EDIT to ADD -

At shot count 594 I tried a Movie with these eneloops on Red (near empty) it managed a 29 seconds clip before shutting down.
The Kx will turn back on after a few seconds to Red (near empty) and will take pictures (I took 4 shots to test)
after nearly an hour rest - turning back on still gets Red,
so I do think the batteries are nearly depleted.

Will report the final shot count.

[fstdslrkx]

Serial 343****

Lithium:
Kit Energizer works great.
NiMh:
GP 2700 - does not turn on with all the possible tricks and magic.
GP ReCyko - takes a couple of tweaks but works for a while. Runs out pretty fast.
Varta 15 minutes - works fine, few "tricks" were needed in the beginning.
Energizer 2450 - Green battery without any games. Do not know how long will hold on though.
Anyway - my first DSLR and almost everything about it is just great. Even choosing simple suitable NiMh batteries for it is much much more "interesting" then for simple digital camera were all types worked without any problem.

[OutOfFocus]

after nearly an hour rest - turning back on still gets Red,
so I do think the batteries are nearly depleted.
Will report the final shot count.

When I did something similar and eventually got to the point the eneloops wouldn't turn on the camera, the open circuit voltage of each battery was only about 1.17 volts and they were not able to maintain a voltage above 0.9 volts when discharging into a load of 0.77 ohms. Subsequent discharge at 100 mA on the C9000 only got about another 20 mAh out of them. That is, they were totally empty!
At that level of discharge I'm worried about over-discharging one of the cells.

[UnknownVT]

got to the point the eneloops wouldn't turn on the camera, the open circuit voltage of each battery was only about 1.17 volts and they were not able to maintain a voltage above 0.9 volts when discharging into a load of 0.77 ohms. Subsequent discharge at 100 mA on the C9000 only got about another 20 mAh out of them. That is, they were totally empty!
At that level of discharge I'm worried about over-discharging one of the cells.

That's probably OK as the Maha C9000 stops discharge when the battery voltage reaches 0.9V which is considered safe/kind to NiMH.

My final shot count was 620 (+ a 29 sec movie) with my first set of eneloops -
this is respectable - but not particularly good -
as my battery fussy K100D often gets over 1,000 shots.

However as mentioned since the Kx is new, I've played with it more, which may contribute to the lower shot count.

On the next set, topped-up charged on Nov/24 (so only 4 days ago) -
gave the Green battery when turned on -
however at shot count 179 showed the orange half battery -
turning off then on did not immediately get the green battery -
but a few more seconds off showed Green battery and for the rest of the evening (with 10 more shots).

[OutOfFocus]

The following graphic shows the voltages on "depleted" batteries that can no longer turn on my K-x in Auto battery mode.

The four entries for each battery set tested correspond to the average discharge of the four batteries into open circuit, 3.33, 0.77, and 0.434 ohms. The straight line through each set of measurements corresponds to a model of a fixed voltage reference in series with an internal resistance.
There are only two measurements for the Eneloops because they could not maintain a voltage above 0.9 volts under the two highest loads. When I subsequently tested the Imedions, I didn't try quite as hard to exhaust them as I did the other batteries.
It appears the non-LSD batteries are held to a different and much higher standard.
N.B. The Imedions delivered 2600 shots before exhaustion. That's less than 1 mAh per shot.

[UnknownVT]

The following graphic shows the voltages on "depleted" batteries that can no longer turn on my K-x in Auto battery mode.
..........
It appears the non-LSD batteries are held to a different and much higher standard.
N.B. The Imedions delivered 2600 shots before exhaustion. That's less than 1 mAh per shot.

hmmm... may be I am missing something.

Your graphs seem to show that the non-LSD batteries are doing much better?

But I think the point may have been missed -
these were batteries which were deemed depleted by the Kx - ie: would no longer turn the Kx On.

This means the graphs are an indication of how much charge is still left in the batteries.

So unless I've misunderstood things - the lower the measurement the "better" the battery.

ie: the battery that shows the least remaining capacity is the battery that the Kx managed to utilize the most of the existing capacity.

So let's take the two eneloops that you could not measure - this literally means the Kx managed to drain/use the full capacity of those 2 eneloops - so that there was no measurable remaining capacity.

In my view the eneloops performed the "best" as the Kx was able to utilize almost all of their capacity.

The "worst" would be the non-LSD since they still show a lot of capacity - meaning that the Kx only managed to use part of their capacity - to have so much remaining.

Yes, I do see the eneloops performing "better" than the Imedions - since the Imedions has more remaining capacity than the eneloops - although as you point out with that sort of shot count - almost anyone would be pleased with them.