AstroCam Batteries

[Patternflyer]

I've seen some other posts with people questioning the new AstroCam cameras. Here's my opinion/frustration......

Overall, they're pretty darn good............ when they work. I get home and download them and it's a crapshoot as to whether there's gonna be anything on the drive. 95% of the time I go retrieve my rocket, the little blue light isn't blinking or even on, yet sometimes it did capture video up until the point I "turned it off". Very strange..... Sometimes the video shuts off in mid-flight, so I assume the battery died, but then I plug it into my USB charger in the car, and it's done charging in 5 minutes...............?????

Like I said, when they work, I get great footage, but there's no guarantee on them working..... The manual says you can get 40 minutes of battery time on a full charge, but I'm lucky if I get 5.

Does anyone know what replacement batteries are available and has anyone attempted to open one up and see what's inside that can be modified? I'm getting to the point that temptation will lead me to rip it open and see about a better quality battery (if one exists.....).

Thanks!

 

[OhioFlyer]

I've run into the same issue multiple times as well. In fact, today it captured about 12 seconds of sitting on a pad before shutting off and missing the actual flight. Somewhat happy to know its not just me but frustrated all the same.

 

[Grant_Edwards]

There was a recent thread where somebody had found replacement cells for the their 808 keybob camera:

https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/808-keychain-camera-replacement-battery.170347/

 

[Wild Bill emeritus]

https://www.amazon.com/EEMB-Battery-Rechargeable-Lithium-Connector/dp/B08FD3V6TF
good luck

 

[tfrielin]

I got two (out of three attempts) good videos from my Astrocam strap-on last month. For forty nine bucks, I thought the quality was amazing---it fufilled my childhood rocket fantasies of recording a flight from the rocket's point of view.

But, as somone pointed out here, my second video also cut off maybe five, ten seconds from landing. Not sure why. I think it was fully charged, so I don't think the battery was drained. Dunno.

One other note---I bought a backup Astrocam and this one had a hole punched in the cover so you could see that blue LED and, so, verify that you turned it on. That was really helpful and I hope the latest iterations of the cam all have that viewing hole.

 

[chipotle mg]

I took my camera apart because the battery stopped holding a charge for longer than a minute. If you do this, try pulling the metal part off first then prying around the seam with finger nail or razer blade. I see it had a jxy 3.7v. 301525 battery with +296wh 2103 as you see in the pictures. I am not experienced in lipo batteries can someone recommend a link to a replacement?

 

[Rocketclar]

The first one I got from Estes was defective so Estes replaced it. I've not had any battery problems with mine. However, the problem I've had is when the rocket gets stuck on the pad waiting or I've had a long recovery time, I can't open the file due to the size. My option then is to load the file into a different program that results in a much lower resolution.

 

[tfrielin]

As I mentioned above I got two good videos on Thanksgiving weekend, although one cut off ten, twenty seconds before touchdown.

I guess the video files are too big to download here or I’d love to post them