on 6/19/02 8:29 AM, jowilcox at jowilcox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> John, you're scaring me. I don't use my flashes day in and day out, but I've
> got NiMH's in ALL of them and love the performance. Am I playing Russian
> roulette with my flash equipment?
>
> Joel W.
>
>> ===== Original Message From "John Hermanson" <omtech@xxxxxxxxx> =====
>> I tried freshly charged nimh batteries in my T32 and it recharged after a
>> full dump in (gulp) less than 6 seconds. Though the T flashes are okay with
>> nicads, I don't know if the nimh's will have any ill affects.
>
>
Seems like it is a battery performance question. The AA alkaline battery can
supply power at a certain rate... this equates to a (for instance) 10 second
recycle from full dump (of course this fades with battery consumption). One
thing NiCd's are known for is being able to supply power at a higher rate...
you can 'melt down' a NiCd by dead-shorting it, don't try this at home! So
the NiCd will put out the needed amount of current to recycle the flash in,
say, 6 seconds instead of 10 seconds.
This would only be a bad thing if the circuitry of the flash couldn't handle
the increased inflow rate of current. I've no info as to whether NiMH can
supply current faster, the same, or slower than NiCd, but both are probably
faster than alkaline chemistry.
I have not seen any warnings that the T-20 or T-32 should not be used with
NiCd (or NiMH) batterys, but I *have* seen warnings that the QA-310 should
NOT be used with NiCd (and presumably) NiMH batterys. I hope that if Olympus
thought the circuitry of the T-20 or T-32 would be damaged by a high current
inflow rate they would have included warnings. I've used my T-20 and T-32
with NiMH batterys without problems, but I have not compared the recycle
time with NiMH to alkaline to see how much current inflow difference there
is.
I've never heard what the symptoms of a QA-310 that has been used with NiCd
batterys and damaged exhibits, but I have a nice clean one that doesn't
work... in case someone knows, can they point where to start looking for
burned transistors or fried capacitors...?
--
Jim Brokaw
OM-1's, -2's, -4's, (no -3's yet) and no OM-oney...
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