Olympus 35 EC battery issues?

<p>Hi,<br>

I am the proud rescuer of a 1969 Olympus 35 EC. Everything seems to work fine but it loves to eat batteries like none other! I've read here and elsewhere about tricks / hacks for using different batteries which work great, and even bought the alkaline replacement 640s. <br>

The problem is I'll get the amber battery light for the first few frames, but it'll fade to dim, eventually just a slight flicker, but continue to work... would this happen because of the voltage differences between the original mercury batteries and their new 1.5VDC alkaline replacements? I haven't tried the diode hack to make everything perfectly 1.5VDC compatible. </p>

<p> Thanks for any help you can offer.</p>