Making a LP-E8 dummy battery for a Canon DSLR camera
August 19th 2024
So recently I got myself a Canon DSLR to make some nice photos. I even went on a nightly photo session to capture star trails. In that photo session I discovered that those old batteries are indeed old batteries which can't really hold up anymore.
Having discovered that a full night would need at least two full batteries I decided to make a dummy-battery and use my mighty powerbank instead.
What you need
- An old LP-E8 battery which we will sacrifice
- DC-DC Step-Up or Step-Down converter or a 7 to 8v power supply
- Soldering Iron
- 10v 470uF (ore more, I used a 1000uF) capacitor. This is Mandatory.
- A multimeter
- Hot glue gun
What to do
- Cut open the old battery (take care, seriously)
- Remove the battery cells and the charging controller
- Separate the charging controller from the battery cells
- Remove the contact terminal from the charging controller
- Glue the contact terminal into place
- Prepare your DC-DC converter if you need one
- Make a small hole in the battery case for the cable (make sure to make it on the right side)
- Connect the VOUT to the battery terminal. Ground is the most inner one, VCC is the most outer one
- Add the 10v 470uF between Ground and VCC
- Use your multimeter to check the correct output voltage on the terminal (around 8V). Adjust your DC-DC converter if needed.
- Glue everything into place
The nearly-final result should look something like this:
Troubleshooting
- One guy has reported that he needed a 10k resistor between - and T (the pin next to -) in order to get it to work. He has not stated which camera he used.
- Another one wrote that his camera showed 'Plase change battery'. In that case the voltage is too low or can't be kept up by your power supply or DC-DC converter.
- Camera stays dark. In that case make sure everything is connected correctly and has the correct voltage output. Also this whole thing doesn't work without the capacitor.
- Camery turns on but crashes when taking photos,... I only have this issue when I want to power it off my powerbank. Everything works fine when using a power supply instead. Probably not enough current.
Sources
Thanks to that guy: