Some notes on Polaroid Batteries
Dec 1, 2023 - ⏱️ 1 minute to read
Since I recently got into the vintage Polaroid hobby, I started researching how I can be less wasteful with the material needed to take pictures with those cameras.
One of the researches I conducted is on battery packs for the Polaroid (or how to not waste a perfectly good battery with each film cartridge).
The old
Back in 1947, Edwin H. Land introduced the Polaroid-Land process. In a nutshell, the negative film gets exposed inside the camera. It then gets squeezed with rollers, which spread a reagent between the two layers. The reagent is inside a pod present in each film slide.
The piccancle of this invention was the Polaroid SX-70 system, released in 1972.
One of the innovations brought by the SX-70 system was the PolaPulse battery present in the film cartridge.
The PolaPulse battery used zinc-chloride chemistry to operate with the cameras requirements of high-current demand for the motors.
The battery used inside the SX-70 film packs was called P80. More info here.
The Impossible Project
When The Impossible Project took over the production of Polaroid film, it started using LiMnO2 batteries in its film packs. In particular, they started using two CP225040N cells. More info here.
The new batteries hold a higher capacity but a lower maximum pulse discharge.