THE CREATIVE CORNER
Being in this situation, I made a lot of phone calls. I found Triad Sales Company, representatives of EXELL Battery USA. I spoke with a very nice person named Jamie Strothman and he explained that they were in the business of making mercury battery alternatives and obsolete replacements. He said that a PX-30 could be easily made out of two Eveready 825 batteries. He mentioned also that he was not in the business to make a few of them. After a lot of pleading and using my best Latin charm he still refused, but he promised to send me a source for the 825's and a distributor list where probably I could source their products. Two weeks after, I received a package from him with two PX-30's made by him at $5.22ea!!. Also I received a nice photocopied catalog of all their batteries which shows most of all the batteries that were required by cameras of the 60's to 80's that are obsolete now because of environmental considerations. I do not promise he will make more but probably if you are nice to him and plead him with a little Latin charm like I did, probably he also could help you.
Jamie Strothman
Triad Sales Co.
Exell Battery USA
800--535-0789
509-922-5504
509-922-3587 Fax
1207 S. Bannen
Veradale, WA 99037
Triad now lists this item as #EPX825BP2 and looks exactly like the original and fits the battery compartment perfectly. Price was $6.00 plus $1.00 shipping.
The Battery - EPX825BP2 had other equivalents as follows:
EPX825 - Eveready
PX825 - Duracell
PX825 - Panasonic
V825PX - Varta
Also, this battery is the same battery used in the Minox Cube Flash Model C4.
I purchased the Energizer (Eveready) EPX825 a couple of weeks ago and at that time the electronics store said they were on the discontinued list. However, that is not confirmed by Eveready only the distributor where I bought the batteries.
One other thing: The "BP2" is not on the battery package containing the EPX825 that I purchased.
If you are a do-it-yourselfer, you can try to find two (or more) batteries that will fit in your camera and provide the voltage that you need. If the batteries are not thick enough to make contact, you can add a spacer, made out of steel that will get the batteries to make contact. After all, neccessity if the mother of invention!
If you need a PX27 battery, look at old cameras and see if the seller with part with the dead batteries. Rather than have him throw them away, you kcan put them to use. I took an old PX27 battery, and with an X-acto knife, trimmed the turned over edge from the white plastic so as to expose the edges of the positive (+) plate. I gently lifted it out, and pulled the mercury cells from the white platic casing. Next, I broke the little welds holding the metal strips that held the cells and the plates together, and retained the end caps, disposing of the old cells --properly, I might add!. I then placed the two end caps together, with the convex sides out, and placed them into the plastic housing which at this point was simply a tube with a lip on the negative (-) end. I placed the two endplates so the smaller of the two convex sides was through the opening on the negative end, and was kept from going all the way through by the lip I kept on that end. I placed a SMALL drop of cyanocrylate glue inside the tube, where the endplates rested on the lip to hold them in place. I then took four 1.5volt 386 cells and placed them with the negative sides toward the endplates- the positive side of the last battery came to the edge of the plastic tube- I then put the whole assembly into my Minox C and so far it has worked like a charm. It resembles the adapter you can buy- I have seen prices up to nearly $30, so this is a rather inexpensive way to solve the battery problem with the Minox C! You have to remember, however, that the mercury cells you remove should be recycled- we have a hazardous waste disposal facility in our city, but if there is none where you are, many camera stores will accept the old cells, and send them in for disposal or recycling.
If you need a K Battery, you are also in luck and a similar approach can be used. The original consisted of three 625 form factor cells in series in a plastic case to yield a voltage of 4.5. You can wire the battery compartment to an external 4.5 volt source or -- if you are lucky to come across a dead Mallory K cell -- you can carefully split the battery case and replace the 3 cells with 625 alkaline batteries. The K cell case is tight enought that the cells will correctly form an electrical contact in series.
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