Polaroid 420 Land Camera Battery help

Well, yesterday I went to my local St. Vincent de Paul store, which

on occasion, offers up some interesting camera bits..I actually was

after a Polaroid camera I had seen on a shelf for a couple of

bucks..but it was gone..disappointed, I browsed around looking at a

couple of beat up lenses, nothing interesting, but next to the

lenses was a box in a paper bag. It turned out to be a BRAND NEW

Polaroid 420 Camera in its original shipping container. Fourteen

bucks and it was mine, complete with the manuals. Finding film was a

bit tricky but this problem was taken care of within an hour.

But....it has a strange Eveready 3V alkaline battery with clip-on

contacts a la 9v radio battery...searching around in Tucson yielded

NO new battery...so my picture taking fun is parked right now since

the shutter apparently needs this current for some kind of metering

activity...anybody know where I can get a battery for this thing?

BTW when I first extended the lense it had to be done VERY SLOWLY as

the bellows were stuck together....

Available directly from Polaroid (thank goodness).

Super thank you!!! I will post the images asap with my "brand new" camera!!

The land list has tons of info on polaroid land cameras

 

http://www.rwhirled.com/landlist/landhome.htm

 

I have a polaoid land 100, got my battery from radio shack. There is info about that at the land list also.

 

Keith

Radio shack is what I tried first but got dumkopfen assistance, showing that radio shack's hiring policty for its stores is now run by the same management principles that download engineering work to India.....I expect Radio Shack to be only a historic item in a couple of years if they don't get their act together. Maybe they can become Leica dealers...

John,

 

as the battery compartment is rather big, I cut away the battery contacts and just taped the wires directly to a CR-123 lithium battery with some duct tape. Not the cleanest solution, and defintely not something you want to do to a new camera, but it will work :)

Rather than taping wires, what I would suggest (if you're unsatisfied with the original type battery, or don't want to deal with them) is to go back to Radio Shack and (without help, probably) find a 2-cell AA holder with 9-V style clip contacts on it. Cut away the plastic clip for the original battery, as suggested above, and clip the original wires to the contacts on the 2xAA holder (double check polarity -- I doubt the Polaroid shutter will work with the batteries hooked up backward, and it might be damaged by it -- but it should be standard for all such clip contacts). The 2xAA cells are cheap, and will be available for decades yet -- gazillions of devices out there that use 'em, and they're still pumping them out by the multi-billions of dollars per year.

 

However, if you can easily get the original type (531 or 532, I'm not certain which it is) 3V battery, try that first -- the camera will retain more collector value and work just as well with those batteries, if you can get one that's reasonably fresh.

 

And then go make some pictures -- remember, you can shot pos/neg in that camera, too, though you'll probably have to turn the lighten-darken control all the way to light to get good negatives from it. Imagine, fine grain 3x4 negatives from a camera bought for fourteen bucks... :)

These are all excellent suggestions...I think the AA battery clip will do it for me, I'm just too impatient to order a battery..it has to happen quickly for me..

SOLVE YOUR POLAROID BATTERY PROBLEM FOR 99 CENTS PLUS TAX-

I figured out a really easy solution to the battery problem. Put down your soldering irons and drills. Just go to Radio Shack and buy a AAA battery holder with the wires (99 cents plus tax) it holds two batteries. Open up your battery door on the camera, cut off the connectors and strip the wires. Twist the red wire with the white wire on your camera and the black to black wire. Use electrical tape to keep the wires connectors protected.Place two AAA batteries in and you're all set. The only thing is that the battery door doesn't close. If you break or cut off the plastic battery clips on the camera you can just lay the battery holder down and the door will probably close.