Finally got my Colorado working right

[White_Falcon]

I think...

 

I noticed that the Colorado doesnt like brand new fully charged batteries so I took my rechargeable NiMH out of my digital camera and gave them a try. So far I have had it on for 4 hours and still have 3 out of 4 bars on the life indicator. Definitely an improvement over the 1.5-2 hours I was getting out of the brand new batteries. Hopefully I can get at least 12 hours out of these batteries and not have to worry about sending in for a replacement.

[+twolpert]

By "brand new", I hope you don't mean "just bought some NiMH rechargeables, charged them once and stuck them in the Colorado." New NiMH rechargeables require conditioning before first use. If you don't condition them, they don't hold a full charge. You need to either run them through a break-in cycle on a smart charger, or through several full charge/discharge cycles.

 

That said, I think most people are experiencing 8-12 hours of typical caching use with properly conditioned 2700mAh NiMH rechargeables. Somewhat less with Eneloop or similar low-discharge batteries because they typically have slightly smaller capacity to begin with.

[White_Falcon]

That is what I meant by "brand new". The ones I am using now have been through several discharge-charge cycles over the past 2 years in my dig camera and they are working fine. These are only 2300 mAH batteries and I am buying a maha charger with 2700 mAH for future use.