The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning

Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.

Category: Photography & Images

Taking & making images.

  • AA Cell Holder: Fragile Contacts

    Broken cell holder contact
    Broken cell holder contact

    It seems I applied a bit too much pressure to one of the contacts on a metal AA cell holder: the outer rim of the rivet holding the solder tab in place departed for the distant reaches of the Basement Laboratory.

    No big deal, I thought: pop another rivet in place and get back in operation…

    You really want the rivet to go in with the flat head inside the cell holder where the original flat head was. Unfortunately, the rivet yanker’s head won’t fit into the holder; I’m pretty sure the manufacturer has a Special Machine to make that happen.

    So I put the reinforcing washer and lumpy end inside. That meant switching the insulating washers to keep the overall distance from the negative cell contact about the same.

    Cell holder rivet - inside
    Cell holder rivet – inside

    The outside looks much better…

    Cell holder rivet - outside
    Cell holder rivet – outside

    For what it’s worth, these pix came from the Sony DSC-H5 with the flash turned down 1 EV. Much better results than the Casio EX-Z850, even with its flash set to Soft (whatever that is). The H5 has much better macro capability… and with the new Eneloop cells, it lasts long enough to make it usable in the shop.

  • Sanyo Eneloop: First Charges

    So I bought an octet of Sanyo Eneloop NiMH cells from the usual Amazon source and ran a few charge / discharge tests, with the hope of powering my Sony DSC-H5 for more than a few dozen minutes at a time. It’s Marching Band season!

    The cells bear a laser-etched 09-10-IF date code that I assume means October 2009, because they arrived in early September 2010. Rumor has it that Eneloop cells come off the manufacturing line factory-charged to 75% of their nominal 2.0 Ah; all eight arrived with the same charge: 1.43 Ah. Given the vagaries of measuring battery capacity, that’s 95% of what they started with, nearly a year ago.

    The eight 500 mA constant current discharge curves are essentially identical:

    Eneloop - As received
    Eneloop – As received

    The first charge after that test was individual cells in a 400 mA charger, the second as a complete 8-cell pack with a 900 mA charger. Those two discharge curves for the pack, again at 500 mA, also overlay nicely:

    Eneloop - 8-cell pack
    Eneloop – 8-cell pack

    The pack voltage remains above 9.6 V for about 1.5 Ah, far better than the tired assortment of cells in my collection (albeit those were measured at 1 A, not 500 mA).

    These should get me through an entire day of Marching Band travel, setup, practice, and competition!

  • A Night Visitor

    One of those midnight “I heard such a clatter” events: somebody or something was kicking a can all over the driveway.

    Turned out that a raccoon found the stack of carefully rinsed salmon cans in the recycling bin and was puzzling over how to get them apart. Evidently he figured there was something really delicious hidden in there somewhere!

    I had time to fiddle with the camera before he gave up and wandered away on his rounds…

    These are in near-IR “Nightshot” mode with my ancient DSC-F717 and the 1.7X teleconverter. They’re automagic crops from larger frames, walloped en masse with ImageMagick:

    
for f in *jpg ; do mogrify -crop 1200x900+700+450 -resize 750x563 $f ; done

    The gritty texture plays hell with JPEG compression, but that’s what the camera delivers. An incandescent spotlight on the driveway contributes the deep shadow, but an ordinary camera (my DSC-H5) produced completely black images, even with the high-power flash setting.

    Memo to self: start keeping the recycling bin inside the garage. But will that just piss off the bears that are moving (back) into the county?

  • Remembering Which Cells Need Charging

    My Sony DSC-H5 eats NiMH cells like candy, which means I must haul along a pocketful of the things. That means I often wind up with a case containing one charged pair and one uncharged pair.

    Ditto for swapping cells in the blinky lights on our bikes.

    Pop quiz: which pair is which?

    Battery Charge State Reminder
    Battery Charge State Reminder

    It’s pretty easy:

    • Nose-to-tail = as in the camera = charge ’em
    • Nose-to-nose = as in the charger = ready to use

    You could do some remote psychoanalysis based on that sort of behavior, but you’d be completely right.

  • Red Squirrel

    Red Squrrel - front
    Red Squrrel – front

    I cleaned the compost out of the gutters yesterday and this critter came by to help with whatever missed the wheelbarrow.

    Squirrels and chipmunks show how far you can get with a snappy color scheme and a good PR agent. These things are rodents, pure and simple, but those large eyespots trip your protect-the-baby response every time.

    They’re not particularly well-behaved, either: the chipmunks and gray squirrels have had running battles with them this spring. We think the area’s chipmunks had a population explosion and are shoving into traditional red-squirrel territory. Could get ugly out there.

    Where are the hawks when you need ’em?

    Red Squirrel - side
    Red Squirrel – side

  • Generic Sony NP-FS11 Li-Ion Packs: Rebuild FTW!

    Herewith, the discharge test results for all the generic Sony NP-FS11 battery packs I have (click for a bigger image).

    Sony NP-FS11 Status - 2010-04
    Sony NP-FS11 Status – 2010-04

    The five mostly overlapping upper traces consist of:

    • Three packs (H, K, and L) rebuilt from the eBay junkers
    • F rebuilt from a deader in my collection
    • E is an older, no-name pack that just continues to work

    The rebuilt packs now have cells from batteryspace.com that are working fine: nominal capacity 600 mAh, actual around 1200 to 1400 for a parallel pair. It’s surprising to see a cell producing its rated capacity…

    The two lowest traces (G & I), plus the purple trace (J) are from the eBay source. The first two are obvious junk, but pack J is actually pretty good. The fact that it’s the best of six packs from that vendor tells you all you need to know about their QC.

    For those of you joining us via search engines, the rest of the story:

  • Generic Sony NP-FS11 Battery Packs: Surprising Contents Thereof

    So I dismantled the three junk packs I got from halfway around the world and rebuilt them with better-quality cells. Search for NP-FS11 and you’ll find the rest of the story.

    Some observations…

    These cases are the thinnest plastic that doesn’t actually break when you pick it up: to crack the case seam, you must push firmly. Two of the three packs were already cracked and the third yielded to a slight squeeze.

    What’s inside? Welly, welly, welly, what do we have here?

    DOA Battery Contents
    DOA Battery Contents

    The cells are labeled Sony Energytec, which ought to be a reputable brand name. Some possibilities:

    • Counterfeit cells
    • Quality test rejects

    I don’t know why you’d bother putting counterfeit cells inside a generic case; it’d be more profitable to sell a completely counterfeit battery with a fancy Sony label. So I’m guessing these came from a batch of cells that failed inspection and were miraculously saved from destruction.

    Battery Protection Circuit Board
    Battery Protection Circuit Board

    They have the usual protection circuit board on the top. What’s a bit tricky is that you must unsolder the three leads connecting to the case terminals before you can extract the cells. I unsoldered the strap from the negative terminal while I was at it; the positive lead is inaccessible beyond the black IC on the left.

    After that, it’s a straightforward rebuild.