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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Nocturnal recording - couple of Q's (1 Viewer)

Jhanlon

Well-known member
Does anyone have recommendations for rechargeable AA NiMH batteries (and good outlets) for a recorder? Mine seems to switch itself off when the battery gets low and despite buying a new set of batteries it is doing this after just 4.5 hrs of recording, which is only half the night. The batteries are 800 mAh and this might be the problem but I believe getting higher capacity ones can be problematic due to the amount of 'fakes' around.

My other question concerns scrolling through the spectogram on Audacity. Can this be sped up? I hold my finger down on the > at the bottom and a friend says that holding down 'shift' button at the same time will speed it up but it doesn't when I do it. Dragging the bar manually across doesn't work well as this is too fast and I'm likely to miss stuff.

Any help appreciated. Thanks.
 
I've been struggling to find a solution to rechargeable batteries for my Tascam. I've been experimenting with an external power bank which plugs into the same socket as the mains adapter. I typically get about 32 hours recording but potentially it should last much longer. You don't mention which recorder you use?

I scroll through Audacity by zooming in to about 12 seconds and then tapping the page up (or is it down?) button on the keyboard.
 
One hassle with rechargeables is that one battery always seems to hold less charge than the others, shutting down whatever you are doing even though there is plenty of oomph in the remaining cells. A few years ago I ended up using one of those chargers that refreshes the batteries and gives a readout of the true capacity of each cell. I then sorted them into sets of four of similar capacity. Grades I wrote on each box were: Good or OK; the rest were flung (sorry - recycled). Its fairly obvious which category they should be stored under! Its a tedious thing to do though.

Checking my invoices over 10 years, the lowest nominal capacity rechargeables I bought was at the beginning of that period, were 1000 mAh AAAs. Since then the quality of rechargeables has improved so you get far fewer d.o.a.s and most seem to last quite well. I have no evidence that I have ever bought fake batteries or if they were they were no worse than the originals. Perhaps I have been lucky?

I have no idea where you can buy 800 mAh rechargeable AAs these days and bearing in mind that will be the maximum charge when new - you are almost certainly trying to operate with somewhat less. My feeling is that you might consider throwing caution to the winds and get some Eneloops from any 'household name' supplier.

The following might be the answer you are looking for in Audacity. It is probably the easiest approach, holding down the shift button using the > symbol on screen makes no observable difference on my copy either. It may be in the Mac forum, but also works in Windows.

https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=95177
 
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Thanks for responses. Yes, using > on the keyboard rather than screen seems to speed things up alright. Iā€™m using a Tascam DR-05 and have just purchased the Eneloop 2500 batteries. Hopefully this will work.
 
Does anyone have recommendations for rechargeable AA NiMH batteries (and good outlets) for a recorder? Mine seems to switch itself off when the battery gets low and despite buying a new set of batteries it is doing this after just 4.5 hrs of recording, which is only half the night. The batteries are 800 mAh and this might be the problem but I believe getting higher capacity ones can be problematic due to the amount of 'fakes' around.

I missed on this one.

Are they really NiMH? 800 mAh sounds like NiCd, which are very very different.

I got several Eneloop Pros plus a charger from Amazon last week and I haven't noticed anything wrong so far. They were Panasonic branded. But it's always good to pay attention, Amazon has been known to sell counterfeit products.

I've seen that RS Components sells Eneloops and Eneloop Pros, but the Pros only in bulk.

Anyway a good starting point to search for a serious dealer would be this website.

http://www.panasonic-eneloop.eu/en/

At least Sound Devices recommends NiMH specifically not only because of their high capacity, but their high current delivery capacity which is very important.
 
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