TECH POST -Replacement power supply for the SONY F505 Li-Ion-Accu NP FS11

Here is a technical how to

get more out of your crappy  NP FS11 Sony Infolithium batteries.

Because the Sony F505 deserves a much better power supply!!! 

10 years on, this Camera is still a very good tool. 

sony f505v 

Replacemant power supply for the SONY F505 Cybershoot with Li-Ion-Accu

Built at: Oct.03.2001 Last update: März 21, 2004

Diese Seite ist auch in Deutsch verfügbar. from the defunkt website : http://members.fortunecity.de/kapmfs/e-liakku01.htm

I use a digital camera for KAP. This has the great advantage that a photo costs nothing and the waste simply can be deleted. My SONY-F505 is operating with a lithium ion accumulator. Unfortunately, this accumulator is just calculated very small and very expensive and after approx. 1 hour duration use in the air it is emptily. Unfortunately such an accumulator doesn't have any infinite life time and I believe in duration use at KAP, special if I permanently have switched the flashlight on to have a triggercontrol, the accumulator having been a strain strongly and the life expectancy sinks drastically. One of my older accumulators shows the following effect: If I put the accumulator loaded freshly into the camera, then a running time of e.g. 70 min. is reported to me. The indication slowly declines. Arrived at approx. 40 min. suddenly it changes from 40 to zero and the camera switches off after two or three minutes.

So I was searching for a substitute for the original SONY - Accu to use it in my KAP-Rig. My first idea, to take a simply NC-Accu, dosn´t work because SONY has implemented the Stamina-technology. With this technology, the camera and the accu, both change data about the carge and discharge. If the camera dosn´t "see" the original SONY Accu it switches off after some seconds with the message: "for InfoLITHIUM BATTERY ONLY".
So the Camera and the electronic must me outsmarted. Not easy. At first I have made some experiments to get informations on how the Stamina-technologie is working.

Summary from the experiments:

• The camera exchanges data about the loading condition and the electricity consumption with the accumulator and the charger.
• If the camera or the charger doesn't detect the original accumulator it switches off again after a few seconds.
• So any accumulator can only be pluged with the Stamina electronic.
• The accumulator can only be charged with the Sony battery charger because the the Stamina electronics must be loaded with data too.
• The accumulator and the Stamina electronics may not be separated after charging.
• With the "Must-combination" SONY-charger and stamina it can only be loadet Li-Ion-accus.

Considerations:

The Sony accumulator NP-FS11 contains two Lithium ions cells with each 3.6 V. These cells are connected parallel. This will give an output voltage of also 3.6 V. SONY doesn't give the capacity to amps of hours (Ah) but how it is fundamentally better the stored energy in 4.1 watts of hours (Wh) for the accumulator. One converts these results for comparison purposes in Ah one gets 1.139 Ah. If you switch three NC accumulators of the type AA with 0.7 Ah in row, then you get the same voltage of 3.6 V but only onto 0.7 Ah / 2.52 Wh. With this energy the F505 would run approx. 35 minutes. Therefore no solution. In addition, the Stamina electronics both for the charging and discharging must be outsmarted. Therefore only lithium ions accumulators can be used and they (it) must be connected with the SONY stamina technology, since the original SONY battery charger then can be used.

The SONY accu NP-FS11 (above respectively green) has a voltage of 3.6 V and an stored energy of 4.1 Wh. It costs (Okt. 2001) approx. 149,- DM. A far too high price for this little energy pack I find. The JVC lithium ions accumulator for the power supply of a video camera has a voltage of 7.2 V (cells switched in row) and a capacity of 1.4 Ah. This corresponds to a stored energy of 10.08 Wh and would suffice for approx. 2.5 to 3 hour duration use with the SONY F505. It has cost 90,- DM. I also have opened this accumulator to get the two big cells. The Li Ion cells in the JVC accumulator are made by Panasonic. They have a voltage of 3.6 V and a stored energy of approx. 5 Wh each. The Stamina electronic is soldered at the green Sony cells.

Original Sony - accumulator and Stamina electronic with microcontroller. On the left photo one also sees the bright metal stripe, the third connection for the communication between accumulator and camera or battery charger between the two powerplugs.

From the original SONY accumulator NP-FS11 I have removed the Stamina electronic and the two accumulator cells. I need the shell as a connection adapter as usually done by SONY cameras in the mains operation. After that I wanted to seal the case with scotch tape. Unfortunately, only one layer of the tape was too thik and the adapter didn't fit in the camera any more. Therefore I have glued the two case halves together with four drops hotglue at the corners.

To get a light power-supply for KAPing I took only one single cell. With this one cell I get a running time of just two hours duration use and the original SONY accumulator now is spared. With the combination from Li Ion accumulator and SONY Stamina electronics it is possible to use the original Sony Battery charger. If the accu loading is done the electronic and the akku may not be separated so that the Stamina Electronic is powerless. Otherwise when connecting the two parts together again the microprocessor probably becomes resettet in the Stamina electronics and the camera is silent. Above in the picture you see the green original cells from SONY. After soldering the connection lines I have shrunk the cell.

Some measurements for the operation of the new accumulator with the Sony battery charger and the DSC-F505:

Charging current if is the charge LED is switched on: Approx. 850 mA
Charging current if is the charge LED is gone off: Approx. 300 mA
Discharge current by the camera: Approx. 1.1 A
Discharge current by the camera with a flashlight switched on: Approx. 1.5 A.
Running time with a cell in the Slideshow mode with display switched on: 1 h, 56 min.
Load time till the charge LED goes out: Approx. 2 h.

This part was added at 2003.02.13

Here are two good links to the theme by Markus (Anm. Manfred) 

http://www.bealecorner.com/trv900/lithium.html

http://electronics.cnet.com/electronics/0-7618899-1318-1589247.html?pn=2&lb=0&ob=0&tag=st.ce.7618899.top.1589247-2

Gruss
Markus

This part was added at 2004.03.20

A further reliable source for Li ion cells are the accumulator paks of laptop computers. I have opened the shown block with 8 cells carefully with a cutter knife. On the back of the pak you can see the accumulator electronics and protection circuit. After I had separated and loaded the cells, with a length of 65 mm and a diameter of 18 mm, one by one, only one of the cells was fault. The remaining seven still had the full capacity. The violet cell in the foreground with 65 mm of length and 18 mm of diameter is from a camcorder accumulator. On the left, the two green original cells from the Sony accumulator NP-FS11 with each 42.5 mm of length and 14 mm of diameter.

Links to other KAPers and more you can find in my Surfers Guide.

I like to be available for questions, suggestions or experience exchange.

I would be very pleased about an entry in my visitor's book.

Manfred
http://members.fortunecity.de/kapmfs/

THanks to : Manfred  (please contact us if you want this post removed)