I found a polaroid 440 land camera. the type of battery is no longer made is there a way to rig up a 123a battery or another battery so it will work?

-- Brittany Cohrs (blc71983@hotmail.com), February 21, 2002

Answers

Hello,

yes, I use the Model 450 and in my camera 3v lithium bateries work very well. I have made replacement batteries using both Panasonic BR 2/3A (and BR 1/2A) sized lithium batteries with great success. The BR 2/3A is the same physical size as the original 3v alkaline battery.

If your camera came with a dead alkaline battery, all the better. Disassemble the old battery. The end connectors should come right off or cut the strap leaving as much on the connector as possible. (If the connectors are corroded, dunk them in vinegar and scrub to clean them up afterwards).

Those connectors can be soldered to the ends of the 3v lithium battery either directly with the tabs that were used to hold the connectors to the original battery or with a very short piece of stiff wire. The result is a battery which looks exactly like the original complete with connectors!

If you don't have connectors from an old battery, you can solder short lengths of wires to both ends of the battery and if you don't want to destroy the camera's original connector, simply wrap the ends of the wires to their respective battery connectors and tape them up...

The only trick is being quick when soldering to the battery so as not to overheat the battery.

Goodluck! tom

-- Thomas de Lellis (delellt@mail.deltanet.com), February 24, 2002.