While I was thinking about the battery size, the thought occured to me that lithium energy cell technology had come a long way recently.
Off to radio shack for shopping!

I picked up a 23-189 for .99 - a 1-inch diameter circular 3V lithium cell, CR2450 - a full 1/4 inch thick!


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A three hour project...
I proceeded directly back to the basement, disassembled the camera and dismembered the AAA battery case.

I thought everything through carefully for the case mod and kept the AAA battery covery to act as the new battery cover.

I cut off the bottom 1/2 inch of the AAA battery case so that I could have a nice curved surface for refinishing the bottom of the camera - a little hacksawing, a little filing, a little exacto knifing, some super glue and the case was finished.

I cut the bottom off of the supplied seperate "webcam" base holder and cut a hole in the side for the camera's USB port - as if it was meant to be, the webcam base holder was PERFECT for holding the newly modified camera together. The "clip" also makes a spiffy "stand" for showing off the camera.

I used the same contacts that the AAA batteries used, unmodified, as the contacts for the new lithium power plant.

The newly modified camera worked perfectly, but I wondered about the battery life.

The camera works on a 16 MB SDRAM, so it must supply power to the memory for the pictures to remain "stored" in the camera until they are transferred out via USB. If the camera loses power, the camera loses all stored pictures.

I shot about 100 pictures from Sat-Wed, when the camera started behaving erratically. I checked the lithium cell on the VOM, - low voltage - drained.

The $1 a day operating cost was acceptable ( battery for 4 days of fun) for a nifty spycam that weighs under 36 grams and measures 3 inches by 1 inch by 1/2 inch WITH BATTERY and CLIP!