Hunting Washington Forum

Community => Photo & Video => Topic started by: HoofsandWings on July 02, 2014, 08:50:43 PM

Title: batteries
Post by: HoofsandWings on July 02, 2014, 08:50:43 PM: When I pull my game cameras, many of the cameras have 8 or 12 batteries.
Is there any rule of thumb on reusing the batteries? It is such a waste after a 1 month soak.
Especially with several cameras.
Title: Re: batteries
Post by: pd on July 02, 2014, 09:23:49 PM: My Bushnell Trophy Cams take 8 AA cells. I use Costco Kirkland brand. From October to June (9 months), several hundred pictures and no dead batteries.

One month is too early to change your batteries.
Title: Re: batteries
Post by: Duffer on July 02, 2014, 10:37:03 PM: Funny, I was just thinking about this too. My cameras tend to sit for about 4 months at a time. Battery life depends a lot on how many night shots were taken. Most will be dead when I fetch them but not always

The lesson I learned tho was, as with chips, don't reuse batteries

I've made the chip mistake a couple of times; not looking to see how much memory was left and then they max out long before the soak is done

afa batteries, I always replace them and bring the old ones home. Then I will check them with my volt meter. Trash the dead ones, feed the low ones into other stuff and save the decent ones for next trip over

What I was thinking was since I end up with lots of 'weak' C-cells that I need to pick up something like a mag-light that uses Cs!

Finishing off weak Ds and AAs is easy

It sucks to set up for a 3-4 month soak and return to find that the camera stopped working a week in!
Title: Re: batteries
Post by: Bean Counter on July 03, 2014, 12:09:27 PM: 12 batteries?? :yike:

My Primos Truth 35 runs on 4x Ds. So far it has taken 15,000 photos and used 50% of the battery life. It will likely last the rest of the season on the original batteries. :tup:

My Brownings, OTOH, run on 8x AAs. When I was up there a month ago Imoved one of the cams that had about 60% battery life left on it, thinking that it made it the prior month only using 40% of the batteries, so I should be good going another month with 60% left. Can't argue the math, but in hindsight Iwish I would have changed them. They died with about a week and a half uncaptured before Inext got up there. It would have been nice to see how some of these guys grew.

http://hunting-washington.com/smf/index.php/topic,156218.0.html (http://hunting-washington.com/smf/index.php/topic,156218.0.html)
Title: Re: batteries
Post by: vandeman17 on July 03, 2014, 12:12:32 PM: I am going on my second year of the same AA batteries in my cam with well over 20k pictures taken on both. They are both still going strong.
Title: Re: batteries
Post by: jackelope on July 03, 2014, 12:19:34 PM: I put new batteries in mine once a year whether they need it or not. Bushnell Trophy cams, 8 AA's. The last time I checked mine, they'd both been out 2 months. 1 had ~4500 pics on one and the other had ~3900 pics on it and both battery life indicators were still at full bars.
Title: Re: batteries
Post by: Bean Counter on July 03, 2014, 03:02:13 PM: Sounds like the Browning Trail Cameras are comparatively battery thirsty.
Title: Re: batteries
Post by: vandeman17 on July 03, 2014, 03:04:26 PM: Quote from: Bean Counter on July 03, 2014, 03:02:13 PM
Sounds like the Browning Trail Cameras are comparatively battery thirsty.

My first camera was an older cuddeback and I am pretty sure I had to swap out the D batteries every two months or so. When I bought my trophy cams, they were more expensive then some but I will make up the difference in battery life pretty quickly
Title: Re: batteries
Post by: billythekidrock on July 03, 2014, 04:38:06 PM: Bobcat turned me on to a great little battery tester.

I primarily use Bushnell cams with 4, 8. or 12 Energizer Lithium batteries and they can be spendy.
Since I have bought it last year I have already saved the cost of the tester in saved batteries.

(https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brightguy.com%2Fimages%2Fproducts%2Flarge%2FZTS%2520Battery%2520Tester%2520Mini-MBT.jpg&hash=beb0873daf714dd5745a4b6b8f65ae296857a4a1)