sudden death of a battery?

stu_the_flat

stu_the_flat

Messages
2,443
Name
Stuart
Edit My Images
Yes
I went to San fransico,

I charged up two batteries, a calumet one which I put in the D700 and the Nikon one I carried as a spare.

When I got there the Calumet battery was properly dead. didn't even display the low battery symbol, the Nikon one was fine.

Anybody had a similar problem? Could the conditions of the long haul flight cause problem? (humidty causing the battery to short?)

I'm charging it up again to see if it will hold a charge.

Stuart
 
I've had similar problems recently - two generic LP-E6's both died after a flight to Estonia, still don't know why. They just won't charge anymore, if I try to charge them they just blink for about a minute and then show fully charged.
 
It wasn't cold. and the battery is only a couple years old.

I wil need to replace it and I don't really want to replace it with a proper Nikon one as they are twice the price.

Stuart
 
I had one I bought in the classifieds go dead on me last week. I think it may have happened because I totally discharged it by accident. It wont charge at all now. The light on the charger indicates full after about ten seconds of flashing. :(
 
stu_the_flat said:
................I will need to replace it and I don't really want to replace it with a proper Nikon one as they are twice the price. .....Stuart
Click to expand...

:thinking:...but with the original purchase price and now the cost of a replacement , you have actually forked out the same as if buying an original Nikon

I'd always go OEM...............:D
 
I have had rechargables not charging ( A nikon one in a coolpix 4800 ),:'( but there is sometimes a way to bring them back to life:clap:

Its a technique called "battery blasting":eek:. Most causes of sudden death are small filaments of the metal ( cadmium or lithium) , growing between the electrodes, these are tiny but cause a short. So to the blasting bit, simply take a higher voltage source than normal and give the battery a quick squirt ( less than a second ). I either use a 12v charger for one of those million candle power torches, or a 12v car battery with a headlamp in series. The reason for the headlamp is to limit the current or you can explode the poor things.
The 12v torch charger is limited to around 100 ma so its safe.

Whatever you use, just a quick touch ( bit like a defibrillator ). If you have a volt meter the battery should suddenly show full voltage again.
If it doesn't recover , increase the dosage ( hold it on longer ).

Then charge as normal.

If you leave it too long the battery will get hot.


Hope this helps recover those "lost" batteries.
 
This does work as we do on vehicle sealed battery's, when they refuse to recharge, just give them a blast with a 24 volt charger for about five minutes, leave them to stand for about a hour to settle down, then charge them as normal with the 12 volt charger.
 
Same here, never had a battery die on a flight. I use 3 nikon batteries and one I got from ebay, it came with the Link Delight grip - and that one gets the heaviest use as its in the grip on the D700 - so most used camera, and used before the in-camera battery. So basically it gets charged and discharged everytime its used - still going strong 2 years later, still has same useage time. Oh and of course, including the grip, only cost the same a genuine Nikon one ;)
 
vizzair said:
I have had rechargables not charging ( A nikon one in a coolpix 4800 ),:'( but there is sometimes a way to bring them back to life:clap:

Its a technique called "battery blasting":eek:. Most causes of sudden death are small filaments of the metal ( cadmium or lithium) , growing between the electrodes, these are tiny but cause a short. So to the blasting bit, simply take a higher voltage source than normal and give the battery a quick squirt ( less than a second ). I either use a 12v charger for one of those million candle power torches, or a 12v car battery with a headlamp in series. The reason for the headlamp is to limit the current or you can explode the poor things.
The 12v torch charger is limited to around 100 ma so its safe.

Whatever you use, just a quick touch ( bit like a defibrillator ). If you have a volt meter the battery should suddenly show full voltage again.
If it doesn't recover , increase the dosage ( hold it on longer ).

Then charge as normal.

If you leave it too long the battery will get hot.


Hope this helps recover those "lost" batteries.
Click to expand...

Potentially very dangerous. If you must do this, be VERY careful.
 
Yardbent said:
:thinking:...but with the original purchase price and now the cost of a replacement , you have actually forked out the same as if buying an original Nikon

I'd always go OEM...............:D
Click to expand...

Same here. Agree 100%. No battery = no camera. They're pretty important things to be cheapskate on. :)
 
stu_the_flat said:
Cheers,

I've charged it and it seems to be holding a charge, but I will probably buy a battery to bak-up my back-up battery before the next wedding!

Stuart
Click to expand...

Buy a secondhand genuine one if you are using it to power a business tool, they turn up in the classifieds for around £20, Nikon have a "how-to" page on avoiding fakes if your worried about buying a duffer...
 
End of last year, after 3 years usage, suddenly all of my batteries took a plunge.

Reported fully charged but were flat in about 50 shots.

Replaced them all with new ones, job done, back to normal.

Rechargabable batteries do only have a certain life expentancy, although I was expecting a little more warning than that.

The "life" meter thing in the camera btw didn't budge an inch, it hasn't on any of my batteries ever...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top