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Battery control
Filed in Ancillary kit - June 23, 2009I see that Panasonic has upped the ante on the battery debate. New firmware detects unauthorised/off-brand batteries and prevents their use. For safety reasons, of course.
Yeah! It’s all about safety. :-) I’m sure that for a licensing fee, or some other type of fee, the off-brand battery’s manufacturer could be included in the list of ‘acceptable/safe’ battery types in the firmware!
June 23, 2009 @ 7:19 pm
I would not be too quick to denigrate the claims of ’safety’. The amount of energy stored in lithium battery, if released rapidly, could do a tremendous amount of damage.
I ran the calculations comparing the energy stored in a fully charged lithium battery for my 5DmkII to the energy stored in several common varieties of ammunition.
Let me just say I won’t be buying any more off-brand batteries. Yes, manufacturer’s batteries are expensive. But the risk is not worth it.
June 23, 2009 @ 10:20 pm
My reckoning of camera batteries (no evidence, of course) is that the underlying cells and control circuits are all the same just with different plastic cases & brand names.
I think the probabilities of catastrophe are very slight, so I’m happy with reputable 3rd party products.
This is not a good trend, IMO.
June 23, 2009 @ 11:09 pm
By all accounts, the Nikon D200 and Fuji S5 are substantially the same camera, apart from the sensor and firmware.
Also by all accounts, the Nikon EN-EL3e and Fujifilm NP-150 batteries are identical, except that they’re chipped to make them non-interchangeable.
Nikon has used the EN-EL3e in several different models, including some still current, of which they’ve sold grillions. They’ll probably be supplying batteries for years – plenty of opportunity to stock up.
Fujifilm made and sold a relative handful of S5s. When they discontinued the camera recently, they almost immediately ran out of NP-150s. When batteries currently on hand wear out owners will have to choose between trashing the camera and risking a third-party replacement.
Calumet has been selling house-branded batteries of both types; I imagine that wouldn’t be a huge risk.
June 24, 2009 @ 5:06 am
I bought three non-OEM batteries for my G1 for just under US$50 whereas three OEM batteries would have cost me ~$220. Even if there is potentially a safety issue here, the difference in cost is such that I am willing to take my chances, as it’s difficult for me to justify paying ~40% of what I paid for the camera as a whole just for a few batteries.
June 24, 2009 @ 12:41 pm
To get beyond forum legends about sources of safe and reliable batteries takes a lot of work. A group of people did this work for the Olympus BLM-1 LiIon battery:
http://t5r.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/e1/clonetests.htm
They bought about eight models, over a wide price range, measured and then disassembled all of them and commented on overcharge and thermal runaway protection in each. The net seemed to be that two aftermarket batteries were as good as or better than Olympus’s. The rest were clearly lower in construction quality, some lacked basic safety features.
But you can’t tell from the outside.
scott
June 24, 2009 @ 2:17 pm
I discovered that the batteries (and chargers) from my Panasonic LX-1 and Ricoh GRD2 are absolutely identical apart from the labelling. Neither has exploded. Yet.
However… I’d certainly not use OEM or “wrong” batteries during the warranty period.
June 26, 2009 @ 11:57 am
As is my wont I went off and investigated.
July 1, 2009 @ 8:41 pm
Martin – thanks. I’ll highlight your post with a link in a new post…
July 1, 2009 @ 8:48 pm
I would just observe that when we say two cameras are identical except for firmware and sensor, we’re saying they’re different cameras. That is, firmware can have a lot to do with current draw, peak power demand, and a host of other stuff that’s relevant to battery thinking.
Likewise, saying that two batteries are identical except for ‘chips’ is saying that the two batteries may have substantially different risk profiles. The charge protection/current control inside the battery is an integral part of managing the risk of high power density batteries.
July 2, 2009 @ 2:25 pm