How to Change Internal Battery on Z5U?

[Stephen Cavaseno]

I bought the BH7001 battery holder and the BT7001 battery for my HVR-Z5U camera. I have the entire handle section disassembly page form the manual but I don't know exactly what I need to disassemble or the order of disassembly to replace the internal battery. Can anyone help?

[Michael Osborne]

Here is a fix for the HVR-Z5 and Z7 series internal batter repair.

It is best to get the same type of rechargeable battery, but a regular one will do also. The rechargeable is a ML2032. You will need the following items:

ML2032 battery
External battery holder with lead wires (red and black). Wires should be at least 3 inches long.
Appropriate size screw drivers.
velcro or double sided tape. I used velcro
Soldering tools.

Remove top two handle screws.
Remove screws from keypad 4x
Remove screws from display hinge 2x
Remove screws from bottom of display. 4x

Carefully separate the keypad from the unit. You will probably need to remove the pivot cover on the foldout display and push the top of the handle to the side. You should not need to remove the handle. Be careful of the ribbon cables attaching the handle. Also the ribbon cable attaching the keypad to the circuit board. The circuit board on my camera had a pull out latch instead of a flip up latch. I repeat, do not damage the ribbon cables. They will require a bit more work to replace, which I do not cover.

Once you remove the keypad, the battery and it's holder reside underneath the circuit board. You should not have to remove the circuit board or disconnect any additional ribbon cables. Find the battery wires. They should be red an black leading to a plug on the circuit board.

What I did was to unplug the battery from the circuit board and cut the red and black wires from the old battery so I had enough to work with on the connector. The old battery remains in the camera with wires from it cut.

I then drilled a hole in the right rear bottom corner of the compartment holding the circuit board, as there was space there to run wires. I threaded the wires from the external battery holder through the hole, soldered them to the connector wires (red to red, black to black) and sealed with shrink wrap. The wires were then routed back to the connector, plugged back in and taped down. The camera was reassembled and the battery holder was then attached to the bottom of the display with Velcro.

I installed a new battery then tested it to make sure memory functions were retained. Now if my battery dies again, I just pop open the holder, plug in a new battery and good to go.


Note, you follow these steps at your own risk. If you do not have the skills to solder or work with electronics, please do not attempt this. If you mess up and your camera does not work, do not blame me. Feel free to PM me with any questions.

Thanks

[Pete Cofrancesco]

Do you realize the question is 1.5 years old.

[Michael Osborne]

I am adding these because the HVR-Z series is still a useful camera.

Errata: I indicated the red and black wires should be cut. Do not cut these. If you do, you will need to make a 3-way splice. You will need to remove the board with the battery underneath then remove the battery. Your new wires should be soldered to the battery terminals instead. This will leave everything else as it should be.

[Alin Avramoni]

Hei guys, I have Z7 and I want to change internal bat. Followed the Z5 instructions but instead of battery I found the speaker. Does anyone knows where it is hiding? I know it's an old thread but why not cover this issue.

[Alin Avramoni]

Found it. It's under the blue board, no wires, directly on the board,. It is a ML621 type. The instructions above are all ok, except on Z7 there is no wires to/from battery.