For some reason the low voltage warning on my older canon A540 has gotten higher and higher, for about 3 years it would shut down the camera when they were down to 90% charge, but recently fully charged batteries fresh off the charger read as dead and the camera shuts itself off immediately before i can take any pictures.
The camera uses 2 AA batteries, and since i can’t afford a new camera i was thinking of buying a 14500 cell and a dummy cell, but at 4.2V it may fry the electronics.
Is there a way i can regulate the max output to say 3.2V, maybe a dummy cell with a circuit that eats up some of the voltage or some kind of circuitry?
Not all nimhs are created equal, there’s Eneloops and pretty much everything else, so unless you’re already using Eneloops, I would question the batteries.
My camera is sensitive to rechargeables when I use older batteries; they have to be close to being fresh off the charger or I get a dead battery shutdown.
Does your camera work with alkalines? They run 1.60v when fresh. Mine works readily with alkalines but drains them fast.
Try eneloops, or consider trying a LifePo cell and monitor the charging cycle so it doesn’t charge past 3.3 volts…that’s likely a 95% or higher charge.
I’ve had the same issue w/ my older Oly SP320. It’s VERY fussy about rechargeables, I tried several different brands [none of which were EneLoops] and finally learned my lesson. I was told that the problem w/ cheap NiMH cells is the voltage drop under load, digital cameras really do present a load to any cell and some older camera’s processor will shut down if the voltage goes low. Most of the newer models are geared to rechargeables which minimizes the issue.
