Make Your Camera Work With an External Battery

Make a bypass battery for a camera that no longer charges.

My camera decided to die on me. It would work but it wont charge the batteries or transfer the card contents via the cable,

A new cable made no difference. I was gifted a new camera but its nowhere near the picture quality of the old.

I tried to charge the batts outside the camera and that did work but those batts are ancient and it didnt last forever.

I can read the memory card in a card reader. So I decided to adapt the camera to allow any battery to be used.

You do have to use a battery with the right voltage unless you are an electrically minded person (I am not). I have a bought battery charger for my size of batteries , the camera wont charge them itself.

Supplies

You need some electrical wire. I used stiff wire for mine.

Polymorph or other plastic that melts and can be shaped. A battery.

A way to charge your external battery. I used a bought charger.

Step 1: Make the Dummy

Take out the original battery and measure it.

Make a mock up using stiff card or plastic and arrange the wires to match the terminals on the real battery and coming out the other end and tape them down. Push it into the battery slot carefully and hold the pos and neg on your replacement battery. If the camera turns on and works, you are ready to do the permanent replacement.

Make a matching rectangle using polymorph and embed wires to corresspond with the positive, negative terminals (marked on original battery) You may also need a Third piece of metal to correspond with the thermal connector. This third piece does not need to actually connect outside the camera, its so the thermal check can try to guage how hot the battery is getting.

I added it without seeing if it could be made without it so you may find it doesnt need it at all.

Step 2:

Test fit it and adjust till its a good fit and doesnt interfere with the memory card.

Soften the 'battery: a little bit and slide it into the battery housing so it can catch on the battery gripper thing(Little orange square in my camera that springs over to hold it there),

. Get it out and let it harden.

You should now have a thing that looks like a battery with two wires coming out.

.Now fit it back in and arrange the wires to come up the side or where ever it wont be in the way.

Step 3:

Make a battery holder with polymorph or use a ready made one. Connect the positive wire up and the negative wire up by poking them through holes in the holder. Bend the ends over so they dont just pull out.

put your battery in and turn on the camera.

You dont have to use polymorph, a piece of wood would do or thick plastic , so long as it is non conductive and the right size and can keep the wires in place.

My fake battery will sometimes come loose and not sit in the battery chamber tight enough, a piece of elastic holds it there.

Because you have made a battery holder, you can just swap out your batteries as needed and if you make it to fit a common size, you never need to buy special batteries again.