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[OM] Metz 60 CT-4 Dryfit Battery Rejuvenation

Subject: [OM] Metz 60 CT-4 Dryfit Battery Rejuvenation
From: "John A. Lind" <jlind@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 2004 02:28:52 -0500
Been lurking with a very occasional posting for a long time now.  Some 
months ago (last year) I acquired a working Metz 60 CT-4.  It was a "Fang" 
deal as its current owner was having problems with it.  Turned out its 
somewhat aged dryfit battery wasn't holding much of a charge.

A fellow list member, and I've been unable to find who it was after 
scouring my email archives, gave a number of suggestions, including deep 
cycling it several times and simply leaving it on trickle charge for a very 
long time.  Turns out the latter . . . leaving it for a number of months on 
trickle . . . has rejuvenated the dryfit battery.  Tested it by leaving the 
thing turned on overnight and it was still idling nearly 24 hours later 
(the Metz 60 series have a fairly healthy idle drain).  Even after that I 
(slowly) fired off quite a few full dumps over a couple hours before it 
showed signs of running out of "juice."  I also have a new dryfit battery 
for it as well and as far as I can tell they both have roughly the same 
capacity.

So . . .
Thank you to the now anonymous individual who suggested letting the weary 
dryfit battery sit on trickle charge for a very long time.  The old battery 
has done a "Lazarus."

I'm no "Tim Allen" but it is kinda cool having a flash that can dump out 
just about an entire f-stop more light than the T-45.  It has about the 
same light output as the blue Press 25 flashbulbs my father used . . . and 
traumatized us with when we were young.  I'm still seeing colored spots 
from the Annual Easter Family Photo of 1963.  Wanna light up the entire 
back yard party at midnight for a photo of the festivities?  And do it 
using Kodachrome 64?  No problem!  Dwarfs the small OM bodies a little, and 
yes, it's tied to a fair sized shoulder-strapped slab with a coiled 
umbilical cord.

What I really plan to do:
Mount it on a flash bracket with one of my Photoflex Lightdome XTC 
softboxes.  Manageable hand held as long as there isn't a stiff 
breeze.  Noticeably bigger and significantly softens the light more than a 
standard fare camera mounted flash softbox (e.g. Lumiquest Softbox [the 
large one]).  It doesn't block the lens on a flash bracket if it's no wider 
than 35mm focal length.  That was a concern until I put it all together and 
checked the viewfinder.

-- John Lind


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