I have an old digital camera that works fine except the battery will not charge. It sits in a docking station so the charging happens in the camera itself. I was wondering if it is possible to recharge the battery outside of the camera. Lets say I applied an equal and opposite voltage to the battery, would this work?
Not opposite polarity!
To charge a battery, you connect the charger with the same polarity as the battery. The charging supply has somewhat higher voltage (depending on battery type) than the battery, so current flows into, rather than out of the battery.
You need to limit the current. You also need a means to halt the charging when it is complete. Depending on the battery chemestry, really nasty stuff can happen if you overcharge, or charge at too high a rate. At best you may ruin the battery. At worst you can start a fire, or explode the battery. Yes, really.
After several years a rechargeable battery will lose it’s ability to recharge. Better just get a new battery.
DON’T reverse polarity! There’s a chance of poofing the battery!
I’d recommend removing the akku and taking it to either a specalized akku shop, or to the photo shop where you bought the camera to have it tested. If the akku is “dead” (they have only 500 to 1000 recharge cycles), then you need to get a new one. If the akku is okay, your charger may be broken, but the special akku/battery shop might have a seperate charging device available for you.
If you can’t remove the akku, you’d probably have to take the whole camera to the photo shop, so they can either take a look or send it in (if you still have warranty).
While this is true the greater problem is the “knee” that develops in charging and recharging.
What in the world is an “akku”?
Or is there a large whooshing sound I am not hearing?
Apparently it’s short for accumulator.
:dubious:
I’ll wager our guest is from Germany.
That’s the thing, it’s not the battery, its the charger. I need a way to charge the battery outside of the camera.
I was mistaken to write that I would reverse polarity. I would be connecting positive to positive and negative to negative. Is this right?
I’m curious as to how you know this if you currently have no way to charge it.
Two things. I bought a new battery and it didn’t last too long. Also, a friend of mine has exactly the same camera and the same thing is happening.
I don’t know if I should be happy or sad that my camera has lasted five years. Why electronics break so easily? Shouldn’t they last forever?
None of this points to the charger to the exclusion of all other factors.
Electronis quite often do last damn near forever. When was the last time you had to buy a tV cause the old one was dead?
Rick - sorry, I didn’t know that term isn’t used in the US. (And QED has guessed right, I’m from Germany.) We use the term “battery” for the one-time things, and call the re-chargeable ones “akkus”, to avoid confusion between “batteries” and “rechargeable batteries”.
Question to the OP: what kind of rechargeable battery is this - NiCd, NiMH, LiIo*? Because NiCd have a lot of problems with the “memory effect”, NiMH don’t, and LiIo neither. This means an important difference when recharchging them (for example, with a home-built charger): a NiCd battery should be drained as much as possible to prevent memory effect, while a NiMH doesn’t need that, and a LiIo shouldn’t be drained completly, because it could damage the cells. (At least in regard to laptop/notepad akkus.)
*NiCd= Nickel-Cadmium, the first generation of rechargeable batteries. Over here, they are slowly disappearing, because of the memory problem and the newer generations of akkus.
NiMH = Nickel-Metal-Hybrid, the next and better generation.
LiIo= Lithium-Ions, used in Notepads/Laptops, in some PDAs and in very good mobile phones. (Cheap mobile phones and other devices still use cheap NiCd batteries.)
Hydride, actually.