I was kind of lucky on this score. I managed to grab up a few remaining mercury cells for my Bolex 150 Super before the well ran dry. I have the two in the camera and the two in the fridge, after that I'm thinking of trying this:

http://www.criscam.com/mr9.htm

If the cell that's giving you trouble is PX-13, this is a viable solution. It is a mechanical adapter with an internal voltage regulator which will allow commonly available silver photo cells to act like the PX-13 1.35V Mercury cell.

Another solution is the Zinc Air cell:

http://www.photobattery.com/zincair.html

The real problem I have is with a GAF (Chinon) ST/602 which I grabbed mainly because this is the same type as my first camera when I was a teenager. It takes the PX-14 cell which is two PX-13s in series inside an outer shell for 2.7V total. Here I was stuck to go with the 3V Alkaline replacement because no exact voltage replacement is easily available.

I intend to do an experiment with this camera. I am going to tripod it with a roll of K-40 and jumper in a variable power supply in place of the battery. Then I am going to vary the voltage from 2.7V to 3.0V and see if I can get the light meter to move. If I can't that means the meter voltage is regulated after the cell and I have nothing to worry about. If I can change the meter reading by fooling with the voltage I will use the camera's exposure adjustment to give me identical meter readings at 3 Volts that they would have been at 2.7V with 40 ASA film in normal daylight (which is how I want to use this camera anyway). If it is very sensitive to cell voltage, I am going to have to watch the battery closely and replace it more often than usual.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ July 07, 2002 04:53 PM: Message edited by: BolexPlusx ]</font>