You have to test with some load on the battery, a digital VOM won't load the
battery enough by itself. I use a small resistor in series (5-ohm...? I
can't remember, and I can't read the stripes either <g>). But I've retreived
mercury cells that I know have to be several years old that still test good,
reading 1.35v even loaded and for a few seconds. I think the OM meter
doesn't use much current, and none at all when switched off, and less the
brighter the scene metered, so most usage is low consumption usage, favoring
longer life.
Compare the new wunderbricks, that eat a pair of expensive lithium batterys
in 15-20 rolls, or the newer digitals that pretty much need rechargable
Li-ion cells just to run all the circuitry. And of course the camera
manufacturers are all moving to proprietary battery configurations instead
of AA's, so they can make profits on the special batterys. Even Olympus is
guilty of this, check out the C-5060 compared to the C-5050...
--
Jim Brokaw
OM-'s of all sorts, and no OM-oney...
on 12/4/03 4:10 PM, ClassicVW@xxxxxxx at ClassicVW@xxxxxxx wrote:
> I have a PX-32 mercury wrapped in paper inside its original yellow box, the
> writing is completely in Japanese that I got with a used Electro 35. It tests
> full charge- 5.6 volts, and it must be from 1968 or thereabouts!
>
> George S.
>
> clintonr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
>
> I've seen original mercury batteries (Type 13 and 625) in cameras we've
> received for repair that I suspect were a
> decade old or more and still going strong.
>
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