For the life of me, I have not been able to keep batteries working in this camera without having to rap it across my palm to get it going. I have talked to Kodak's tech non-support. I have found that an extra battery pack from Kodak and the fast charger at least keep a fully charged set available in a short time when the other pack fades.

It can sit in the dock for 12 - 24 hours, show a fully charged battery pack, and flash red (no charge) when it is removed and switched on. I can take the pack out and put it back in and sometimes that will revive it. Other times, a slap across my palm will inspire it to action.

It works great, when it works. It is so frustrating not to be able to be sure that I will be able to take pictures when I take the camera out of the dock.

 

Chris,

You describe rapping the battery across your palm indicating a bad connection and that the battery fades like it's not holding a charge.
Which symptom is closest to your problem?

I have problems with two different older cordless drills.
No problem when they were new but as they aged I have to wiggle the battery in the charger and occasionally bang the bottom of the drill if it quits.
Does this sound like a similar problem?

A review site shows that you can use two standard AA NIMH batteries.
I wonder if they would be worth a try. Your battery pack is really two AA's soldered together. They could be defective.

I use NIMH AA's in my Fuji 2800 and I'm really pleased with their performance.

 

Rapping the camera across my palm is the more common. When the camera works, it works well. I have tried NiMH with some degree of success.

What I have done to resolve the unavailability of the camera is to carry an extra battery pack with the portable charger. It can recharge a pack in about 1 hour. The extra pack can be topped off in a few minutes.

Sometimes, just swapping the battery packs will solve the problem. This is the second one of these DX3600 cameras that I have had. Both exhibit the same problem. I think it is a feature of the camera, battery pack, dock combination.

 

Difficult symptoms to diagnose.

Could it be that the camera is shutting down on a low battery condition and taking out the battery and reinserting it resets it?

Also, are you able to plug the charger into the camera, bypassing the dock?

 

The two ways to recharge the battery are the dock or the separate charger for just the batteries.

 

The symptoms lead to bad battery packs or a connection in the camera by being able to rap them and then have them work again.

If you put away with the rechargeable packs and try a set of regular NIMH rechargeables or lithium batt's you will eliminate the dock and charger as the culprit.
Kodak doesn't recommend alkaline batts but you could check around to see how they will actually perform.
I doubt they will do damage to your camera.

 

I have tried the NiMH batteries. They work, but cannot be recharged in the dock. I have to use a conventional recharger and it takes several hours. So the Kodak pack in the rapid charger actually works better, because time is generally the essence with taking pictures.

The next problem is that the Kodak EasyShare program won't run on my computer. I have installed and uninstalled over and over and still get the same error. I use the built in program that comes with XP Pro, so at least I have something. Perhaps there is a gremlin afoot.

Thanks.

 

If you say that the regular NIMH batteries work, then the answer to your problem I guess is to either replace your dock/battery packs or get a second set of NIMH batteries.

You are right about time being the esscence in photography.
My beef with digital is, in my current camera anyway, time between shots, time to process each shot and the time it takes to reprogram the camera through a menu to make a simple exposure adjustment.
Something that is not a problem on my film camera.
Oh well, the price of progress I guess.

Your software problem I experienced with a Umax scanner I got on sale.
I eventually had to get rid of it and changed my buying habits to reflect more mainstream brands.
I am not necessarily an HP flag bearer but my HP laser printer and scanner have worked flawlessly, without the glitches I had with Umax and Lexmark.

You might try to download Fuji's Exif Viewer program. (Windows)
It's what I use and was able to use it for a friend's Konica camera.