Dummy Battery for the Sony RX100 VII Camera

In this post I talk about how I got my Sony RX100 VII camera set up to use an external power pack via a dummy battery. Tools for the job are:

• A “Variable Speed Rotary Tool” – like this one, from Dremel

Materials for the job are:

• A dummy battery
• An external USB battery pack – I like this one, but any will do.

The camera is advertised as being able to be used for vlogging, but with the battery life and overheating I have no idea how that would actually work. But I have managed to turn the RX100 VII into a good vlogging camera by adding the cold shoe (for a microphone) and making it compatible with a dummy battery. However, using the dummy battery is not as easy at it sounds, you have to cut into the cameras plastics. For me though, it was worth it. Using an external USB battery pack I now have near infinite battery life. The camera does not get nearly as hot. And, in addition to the improvements for vlogging, I am also able to take very long exposure photos for astro-photography (thanks to the extended battery life.

Here is what I did: Used a dremel tool to carefully cut out a wedge in the battery door. This is harder than it sounds as I wanted to still keep the door functioning so that it would close. I managed to do this by carefully working around the metal latch under the door. The photos do the best job of explaining what I did, so I’ll just leave these here:

Overall I am very satisfied with how this turned out. Sure I would have loved for the camera to be more easily compatible with an external / dummy battery, but this modification does the trick.