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How to save battery life on S90 while taking 1 picture every 5'

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Offline birdy

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How to save battery life on S90 while taking 1 picture every 5'
« on: 19 / September / 2016, 14:00:43 »
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Hi,
First of all I would like to thank all the people who have been involved in CHDK, it is a very nice piece of sw!
I am often traveling by bicycle and would like to take automatically a picture every 5' while riding.
During the day I do not have access to external power.

For this purpose I bought a second hand S90 and used a slightly modified ultra intervalometer.
My problem is that the battery is empty after 2 hours (my goal is to have 4 hours/battery and get 2 batteries loaded everyday).
I put manually the camera in TV at 1/250s autoiso, stabilisation on only when taking picture, saving on the SD card JPEG and DNG before starting the script.
Then in the script I switched off the lcd, set the focus at 15000 (15m), set_aflock to 1.

- Is there a way (using a script for instance) to check if the battery is old (or too old)?
I ordered an additional battery and will do soon more tests

- Is there any other things to do/recommend to extend a bit the battery life?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Patrick
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Offline waterwingz

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Re: How to save battery life on S90 while taking 1 picture every 5'
« Reply #1 on: 19 / September / 2016, 16:37:14 »
 You might want to take a look at the Ultimate Intervalometer.  It has various power saving modes and low battery shutdown built-in.
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Ported :   A1200    SD940   G10    Powershot N    G16
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Offline birdy

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Re: How to save battery life on S90 while taking 1 picture every 5'
« Reply #2 on: 19 / September / 2016, 16:48:31 »
Thanks for your quick answer.
I will do new tests with the LCD backlight turn off and will switch to playback mode between the shots.
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Offline waterwingz

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Re: How to save battery life on S90 while taking 1 picture every 5'
« Reply #3 on: 19 / September / 2016, 19:24:16 »
Quote from: birdy on 19 / September / 2016, 16:48:31
I will do new tests with the LCD backlight turn off and will switch to playback mode between the shots.
Incidentally,  it would be quite easy to modify the script to do something visual when the battery voltage drops below a certain threshold.  Many blink an LED rapidly or turn the LCD on and display a warning message in large bright text.  Might be handy if you are cycling and hope to change the battery before the camera actually shuts down.
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Ported :   A1200    SD940   G10    Powershot N    G16
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Offline c_joerg

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Re: How to save battery life on S90 while taking 1 picture every 5'
« Reply #4 on: 20 / September / 2016, 05:25:14 »
 
Quote
Is there a way (using a script for instance) to check if the battery is old (or too old)? [\quote]
I’m using this method:
If you make the measuring in playback mode and you have a chance to measure the mean current once, this gives you real good results. On a new Canon battery, I’m very close to the specified values. I have a couple of no name batteries which give me only half of the specified values.

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Is there any other things to do/recommend to extend a bit the battery life? [\quote]
My experience says, everything what you can do doesn’t gave you more than 20% more time…
I would use an external power bank…

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Many blink an LED rapidly or turn the LCD on and display a warning message in large bright text. [\quote]
On bicycling, a peep (sound) might be helpful…
« Last Edit: 20 / September / 2016, 05:26:55 by c_joerg »
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Offline birdy

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Re: How to save battery life on S90 while taking 1 picture every 5'
« Reply #5 on: 21 / September / 2016, 12:49:28 »
I tried to switch the mode of the S95 to save energy but I have problem to use set_record.
Using this very simple ubasic script:

print "get mode", get_mode
sleep 5000
set_record 0
sleep 6500     
print "Shot !"

when reaching the line set_record 0 it seems that the camera is crashing (black screen and I have to turnon again the camera)
I have the same problem using set_record 1
I tried also when the S95 is in play or record mode

Ps: I have put 2min to screen timeout

Am I missing something?

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Offline reyalp

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Re: How to save battery life on S90 while taking 1 picture every 5'
« Reply #6 on: 21 / September / 2016, 22:19:21 »
Quote from: birdy on 21 / September / 2016, 12:49:28
I tried to switch the mode of the S95 to save energy but I have problem to use set_record.
Using this very simple ubasic script:

print "get mode", get_mode
sleep 5000
set_record 0
sleep 6500     
print "Shot !"

when reaching the line set_record 0 it seems that the camera is crashing (black screen and I have to turnon again the camera)
I have the same problem using set_record 1
I tried also when the S95 is in play or record mode

Ps: I have put 2min to screen timeout

Am I missing something?

This seems like a bug, though I would be slightly surprised if it was totally broken on this camera. It's possible there's some other factor involved in the crash.

If you get a romlog http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/Debugging#Camera_crash_logs_.28romlog.29 that might provide some clues.

You can also try the setrec.bas and/or setrec.lua scripts in the CHDK/SCRIPTS/TEST directory to see if it is something specific to your script.

Did you have a remote or computer connected to USB when it crashed?
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Offline birdy

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Re: How to save battery life on S90 while taking 1 picture every 5'
« Reply #7 on: 22 / September / 2016, 01:28:32 »
Thanks for your advice.
I tried setrec.bas and get the same behavior when executing the line set_record a.
Here is the romlog that I get when running setrec.bas
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Offline reyalp

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Re: How to save battery life on S90 while taking 1 picture every 5'
« Reply #8 on: 22 / September / 2016, 12:59:09 »
Quote from: birdy on 22 / September / 2016, 01:28:32
Thanks for your advice.
I tried setrec.bas and get the same behavior when executing the line set_record a.
Here is the romlog that I get when running setrec.bas
Thanks, that definitely looks like a bug. What CHDK version are you running, and what Canon firmware does your camera have?

Also, is it an S90 as in the thread title, or an S95 in some of the comments above?
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Offline birdy

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Re: How to save battery life on S90 while taking 1 picture every 5'
« Reply #9 on: 22 / September / 2016, 13:04:14 »
Sorry for the mistake. I confirm it is a S90.
Firmware is 1.01c
CHDK 1.4.1-4678
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