Going environmental friendly on the Olympus AF1 (and others)

[Jesito]

Hi Colleagues,

Thanks to Farside, I took the dust off my Oly AF-1.



It works like a charm, everything is okay. I put a test roll on it (SCHLECKER ISO 200 x 12 shots), and all was fine. Flash shooting when needed, etc.

But at the end of the roll (the camera has an automatic rewind function), the roll didn't rewind at all. I first mistakenly thought the roll was already rewound, so I opened the camera. My surprise was seeing the film still there, so probably it's damaged. No big worry, there were only test shots inside.

So the second thought was the camera did die. Too much coincidence, so I realized that probably the battery was exhausted. Taking it out and measuring the voltage proved so.

So next step was to buy a new expensive single use lithium battery. The price of a fresh battery might be more than the camera's current value in eBay. And also, throwing away dead batteries in not my way of keeping the environment. So I decided not to spend money in single use batteries and try to adapt some of the rechargeable ones.

The first step is to analyze what's inside the CR-P2p battery that was inside the camera:

1. Peeling off the transparent plastic film and the label





Once them off, we can see two side windows (one on each side) that show two s¡ngle cells (as expected from the shape of the battery).



2. Opening the top side is quite easy pressing up from the windows with a screwdriver:



We can see the expected two cells, that bear much ressemblance to the CR123A lithium rechargeable batteries that I use in the SIGMA SD-9.
Both battery cells are connected togheter throug a flat metal band.

3. Clean up the borders to allow the battery cells to go out:



Both cells are dry. So best to remove the metal strip to reuse it.

3. The CR123A cells are equal in size (good eye! ).



4. So let's put two of them (fully charged) in, and use some transparent adhesive band to keep everything in place, including the recovered metal strip:







5. Put back in place the black plastic piece taken out from the top, and fix it also, measure with the tester to check that the process went ok and put the new rechargeable battery back into the camera:





And that's all folks!.
Now your AF-1 is environmental friendly. BTW, the charger for the CR123A and 4 batteries, cost me 9.49€ shipping included, from eBay, much less than a single CR-P2p battery (15€ in the local shops).

So please, do me a favour and go environmental friendly you also.

Kind regards,
Jes.

[Katastrofo]

Wow, Jes, I did the EXACT same thing 3 days ago for my Ricoh FF-90
Super! Amazing...

I used a dollup of liquid solder for each battery to help the metal strip
stay in place, the one that straps both batteries to 6V.

Duracell is DL 223A which immediately clues you in that these are just
two CR123A batteries strapped together. And at Batteries + in town runs
you $14+! for one battery. I just bought 6 more CR123A Duracell Ultra
off ebay for <$20 shipping included.

It took about 5 Personna razor blades to cut off the top of the battery
case. lol

[Jesito]

[Farside]

Excellent news, Jes.
I was thinking of doing something along those lines, since the price of a new battery locally is quite silly. Luckily, the existing battery seems ok for a while yet.

[Nisei]

2 non rechargeable 3V Lithium batteries in series total up to 6V
2 fully charged Li-Ion batteries in series total up to 8.4V
You were lucky your camera can handle the 35% increase in voltage but I wouldn't recommend this as a general way to replace Lithium batteries in equipment from an era before rechargeable Li-Ion batteries were common. In those cases it's safe to use LiFePo4 which is 3.2V per cell.