Dead Phottix battery

[pmack]

Anyone had problems with Phottix batteries?

I had a genuine canon battery fail on my last camera (40D), so with my current 7D, it wasn't hard to make the decision to try a non genuine battery. I purchased two Phottix batteries (LP-E6 equiv.) on ebay last year, and they worked well, untill i noticed one had gone completely flat.

I put it in for a charge, and after a few hours, I came back to see it continuously blinking. So not the one, two, three blinks, or the constant on, but a continuous blink. I put it in my camera, and it gave the camera absolutely no power. I put the other phottix battery in my camera, and it turned on fine.

What do you think has happned here?
Complete cell failure or something? The "chip" has stuffed up?
Maybe I should return to buying genuine canon batteries. Though does anyone recommend any alternatives?

Thanks

[tarwoona]

I've bought a couple of cheapies from EvilBay and never had an issue. And if they do die early well really who cares.

That said the dead lithium batteries aren't the sort of thing you should just throw in the rubbish.

[arthurking83]

....
Maybe I should return to buying genuine canon batteries. Though does anyone recommend any alternatives?

Thanks

You've had both types(genuine and non genuine) fail, so you are the only person in the best position to fully answer this question.

Me, on the other hand, have never had any batteries fail, which includes batteries for a D70s, from 2006, all still going strong too!

Dunno why either? I don't particularly look after them in any special manner.
D70s hardly gets used now. It has been my son's camera for at least 3 years now, and for the year prior to that it simply sat in the bag 99% of the time as a spare/backup that never really go used.
I did used to occasionally mount a different type of lens to it, to what I'd have on my D300, and that 'workflow' comes and goes too now. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't bother.
Basically, it may shoot 100 frames in a 6 month period, or it may shoot 300 in a day on the occasional spurious moment.
Needless to say that the 1 original and 2 after market batteries all still hold their charge perfectly, unless my son sneaks in after hours while I'm not looking and charges it/them :p

Batteries still hold enough charge for at least a few hundred shots, and I'm still sure that my two aftermarket batteries hold more charge than the original Nikon battery.

What it all boils down too are two basic principles:
1. luck
2. possible misuse, mishandling, incorrect charging routine on your part??
Not that I do anything particularly special to my batteries other than I do prefer them to be quite low on power before I recharge them.
That is, I won't re charge the batteries if they aren't low on power. There is no cut off point, but(as an example) if the battery has 80% power and i know I won't need more than that, I won't charge it just to be sure I have enough.
On a few very rare situations, I may charge it up again if it's only at 80%, because I know I'm going to drain it.
Even then, I still have some idea as to a time frame, I'm up against, and I have a portable charger(cheapo third party) that I also use when out and about on a drive as well. So, if I'm coming up to a low battery situation(D300, as it only has 1 battery), I'll top it up via the car charger for a short while(say from 30% to 35%), do a quick shoot and charge it again.. etc, etc.
This isn't a very common or regular situation, and I've only ever been caught short once, in many hundreds of shoots. Basically I never really 'pampered' my batteries, but they just seem to last.

I have had other devices batteries fail tho. Most notably my old PDA. Went through two sets of(two) aftermarket batteries for it(ie. 4 in all!), but they had to be both specific in terms of size as well as price.
All four batteries for the PDA were still less than 1/4 of the cheapest price I could find for the original(albeit larger) battery. I wanted the smaller batteries for a more compact form, compared to the original battery as well tho.
They were all purchased a few years ago as well.. maybe 4 or so?? and where the first two batteries dropped dead in only a few months, the two I have now, have lasted for the full 4 years I've had them.
Both sets(purchased at $10 for the pair!!) were 'the same brand'(that I knew of) but at least from the same ebayer(so I assumed them to be same brand).
I had no hard feelings, I took the punt that the ebayer didn't deliberately set out to sell me a pair of duds in the first instance, and my reasoning was that :
a. they were damned cheap and bound to be useless
b. there must surely be at least two of these batteries of this type that must surely work(otherwise there'd be too many complaints of some kind from someone).

I initially got unlucky and then got lucky.

One thing I do know tho, is that the manufacturers(of your camera!!) do not manufacture batteries. So the term original manufacturer is a bit of a misnomer.
All they (probably)do is specify a particular quality from the manufacturer of the battery(who is almost certain to be the same as 50% of the after market batteries ;) .. and the other 50% is from the other manufacturer :p) .. all made in China from Li cells that are produced in Japan! :D
(That's what my aftermarket batteries say.. '(cell from in Japan) Made in China' .. no branding, nothing .... other than this, a 'For Nikon' sticker and some other hieroglyphics).

[Speedway]

I have been using aftermarket batteries in both my 400D and 7D for 5 years with no problems either.
Keith.

[KeeFy]

Try not to fully discharge your batteries. Re-charging before the 50% mark will prolong the battery life.

I personally like phottix as they do make great batteries. I have about 7 batteries for my camera, of which 3 are original , 3 phottix and 1 no brand. Only the no brand one has failed me. I typically keep them charged and cycle between the 3 pairs. :)


http://www.ebattery.com.au/blogs/Rechargeable-Batteries.htm

[KeeFy]

One thing I do know tho, is that the manufacturers(of your camera!!) do not manufacture batteries. So the term original manufacturer is a bit of a misnomer.
All they (probably)do is specify a particular quality from the manufacturer of the battery(who is almost certain to be the same as 50% of the after market batteries ;) .. and the other 50% is from the other manufacturer :p) .. all made in China from Li cells that are produced in Japan! :D
(That's what my aftermarket batteries say.. '(cell from in Japan) Made in China' .. no branding, nothing .... other than this, a 'For Nikon' sticker and some other hieroglyphics).

As with everything else, like iphones and most electronics these days. They are contracted out to different manufacturers ( sometimes sole manufacturers ). Some of them have their own factories as well but due to demand sub-con production to other companies to meet demand. So it doesn't make a difference if people call it OEM or Original manufacturer. It's been commissioned by the company and built to their specifications.

As for aftermarket batteries... it is common for no brand 3rd party batteries to say "Cell from Japan". Trust me when i say this. The cheap ones DO NOT use cells from Japan. They use cheap low quality cells from China. I worked in China for 6 months and have experienced lots of fake tagging. For litium ion, reputable companies will buffer 20% buffer for their rating because charging to 100% will degrade the cells much more quickly. So the company may tag it as 1800mah when the true capacity is actually 2100mah or something along those lines. The internal circuitry will allow charge to 1800 only. As for the cheap ones, you get what you pay for.

[pmack]

You've had both types(genuine and non genuine) fail, so you are the only person in the best position to fully answer this question.


Well the "orginal" canon 40D battery (no chip on those) that failed didn't quite fail so dramatically, it just ended up very weak, only lasting for like 20 shots and only charging for 5-10 minutes. Whereas the phottix battery seems to have just completely failed without any hint of power, though I wonder that because of the whole "chip" thing inside them, when they do have a cell failure, they now just stop working all together. Don't know, though i do know that there are many modes of failure for a battery so it is probably just that.
I'm not concerned about the failure of the battery in itself, but more the potential damage it could cause to the camera or charger.

Phottix do seem to have an ok rep, so I may give them one more go. Though I'll no doubt feel like a fool though if I have another fail on me!


One thing I do know tho, is that the manufacturers(of your camera!!) do not manufacture batteries. So the term original manufacturer is a bit of a misnomer.
All they (probably)do is specify a particular quality from the manufacturer of the battery(who is almost certain to be the same as 50% of the after market batteries ;) .. and the other 50% is from the other manufacturer :p) .. all made in China from Li cells that are produced in Japan! :D
(That's what my aftermarket batteries say.. '(cell from in Japan) Made in China' .. no branding, nothing .... other than this, a 'For Nikon' sticker and some other hieroglyphics).
Yeah it was that arguement (along with previous experience of a canon labelled battery failling on me) that helped me in the decision to go for a non-canon battery.